Chutes and Ladders
by Zettel
Summary: Not-so-ace private detective Chuck Bartowski meets former conwoman, now kindergarten teacher, Sarah Walker. They team up to solve a case. But are they working together or dating or what? Will they live long enough to find out?
1. On Your Marks!

**A/N1** A new story. A bit of light-hearted fun. This first chapter is a prologue. The story will not be long. Mostly quick and episodic. A big handful of small chapters. I'm calling this a _Noir Farce_ , but it bears only a family resemblance to each. Don't know exactly to what category it belongs. It's its own thing.

Don't own _Chuck_ \- and I really only type that out of habit.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

Chapter One

 _On Your Marks!_

* * *

 _Friday, March 17_

* * *

"Miss Walkerrrrrrr!"

The sound could have felled a tree - redirected traffic - raised the dead.

Again: "Miss Walkerrrrr!"

Sarah Walker had no choice but to respond. She picked her way through the bodies on the floor, arranged in neat rows, each unmoving. She always found the scene a little frightening, unnerving.

Sarah knelt down next to the one moving body, the one twisting body. She reached out and gently rested her hand on the little girl's shoulder.

"Sasha! Sasha!" Sarah whispered urgently, "Sasha! It's just a dream, sweetie."

The little girl's eyes opened, wild and unfocused for a moment, almost crossed, then she came to herself, saw her teacher kneeling over her, the familiar long blonde ponytail, the intensely kind blue eyes. She sat up and grabbed Sarah, hugging her. Sarah hugged her back then took her gently by the shoulders.

"Was it the same dream?" Sasha nodded. "Bad men coming to school, chasing you, chasing me?" The little girl used her hand to wipe her eyes, then her nose, then wiped her hand on the sleeve of Sarah's blouse. Sarah ignored it. Kindergarten. "It's okay. Just a dream, Sasha."

The other kids, now used to Sasha's naptime terrors, finally began to stir. They often slept through her siren cries, not out of deafness or indifference, but simply because they were tired and Sasha often had terrors. They had gotten used to it.

Sarah checked Sasha's face once more. She seemed okay. Still, Sarah was going to have to call her parents. Again.

* * *

 _Saturday, March 18_

* * *

Charles (Chuck) Bartowski, PI, was watching Jill Roberts through an old pair of surplus Swiss army binoculars. Old, but good: high-quality optics. At the moment, he'd have been happy for the image to be less bright, less clear.

Jill had been his girlfriend. Had been. Until she decided that Chuck's life, army surplus and bargain basement, was not up to her standards. She had started dating a new guy, and Chuck found himself summarily dumped. That would have been bad. Hell, that _sucked_. But the kicker - and life, Chuck had discovered, always had a _goddamn_ _kicker_ \- the kicker was that she had taken up with Chuck's college frat buddy, now police captain Bryce Larkin. Chuck and Bryce had a history that had soured their friendship and made them, at best, cordial to each other, at worst...well, they were always cordial, best and worst. But neither man liked the other; that much was sure. Old scars, bitter feelings.

Chuck had introduced Jill to Bryce when they had run into him at a police department New Year's party Chuck had, effectively, crashed. He hadn't had the money to take Jill any place fancy - he hadn't had the money to take her any place, period. His buddy on the force, Detective Casey, had finagled him two tickets though he was not among those officially invited. _Serves me right, I guess. No money to keep a woman like Jill._

That Larkin had taken a fancy to Jill was apparent that night, and Chuck knew he was in trouble when Jill spent the evening eyeing Larkin as he moved around the room, exuding charm like a skunk spraying musk. Jill kissed Chuck at midnight with zero enthusiasm. And then she had him take her home, kissing him when they got there with less-than-zero enthusiasm.

Not long afterward, he got a _Dear John_ text. _What a way to go. Death by kiss-off emoji._ A few weeks later, Casey mentioned seeing Jill with Larkin.

Chuck had accepted it. Things with Jill hadn't really been great...not after the first few months. And they certainly hadn't been great at the end. But he had been hopeful at the beginning, thought maybe he had found the one.

He snorted derisively at himself as he lowered the binoculars. He had found one alright (one _what_?) - but sure as hell, not _the one_.

He made a note in his small wire-bound notebook, the one he kept in the inside pocket of his worn sports coat, using the pencil he had 'borrowed' the last time he played miniature golf. His buddy, Morgan Grimes, owned the course and let Chuck play for free. He felt bad about 'borrowing' the pencil - but he liked the small pencils, they fit inside his pocket - and he had never found any store that sold them. He had tried breaking regular sized ones, but he had gotten splinters. So he went back to 'borrowing' from Morgan once in a while.

He scribbled an address and a time. Same address, same time as last Saturday. Another lunch with Larkin. He shook his head. _This is a waste of time. I don't care that she's with him, but I can't just let it go. I need a real case. I need a real case bad._ He had played all his computer games, read all his graphic novels, cleaned his gun. He had even straightened up his tiny office. But he had been two weeks between cases and his bank account was about as enthusiastic as Jill's New Year kiss. Zero.

He started the car, listening to the starter whine and praying it would keep going for a while longer. After a strangulated moment, the mighty old engine of the Crown Vic shook itself to life, billowing blue smoke from the tailpipe. _I can't believe I let Casey talk me into buying this heap._

ooOoo

Dr. Ellie Woodcomb looked around the tiny office. There was no way someone the height of her brother was hiding from her in there. He must be out on a case. _Some detective, he leaves his door unlocked._ Ellie dug into her bag and found an old envelope that had gotten shoved into the bottom. She had made some notes on it weeks ago and then forgotten where she put it. She located a pen after another moment of digging. She put a line through her earlier notes and wrote a brief message for Chuck. _This is the last time I do you this sort of favor, Charles._

ooOoo

Sarah put down the phone. She had tried to call Sasha's parents the day before but had not been able to reach them. They had called her just a few moments ago. The whole situation was strange. Her parents - Sarah had talked to Sasha's mother, Virginia - were well-spoken, seemingly kind people. But they would never tell her anything specific about what was going on with their daughter, offer any explanation about her bad dreams. They listened to what Sarah had to tell them, they promised to see about their daughter, but the situation seemed to remain the same. Sarah thought she could detect a new note in Virginia's voice earlier, a note of frustration, but she was not sure. Sarah did not even know what Sasha's parents did, although all indications were that the family was well-to-do, perhaps wealthy. The whole situation was strange - there was a feeling of reticence or secrecy surrounding the little girl and her family. Or it struck Sarah that way. Maybe it was all in her head.

Her phone rang. She looked at the screen. It was her new friend, the doctor she met at the gym, Ellie. She sighed. Ellie had a brother...and she wanted Sarah to meet him. Sarah had tried hard to discourage the idea without seeming rude, but Ellie was not a woman casually resisted. To resist her, Sarah had come to realize, you had to get up early and dig your foxhole, fortify your position. Because otherwise, Ellie Woodcomb would sweep you from the field. Full-on rout. Sarah declined the call. She would deal with Ellie and her romantically challenged (Ellie's phrase) brother later. _Ellie sure knows how to sell it._ At the moment, she was late for brunch with her dad. He had set this up a few days ago, and it would be her only chance to see him while he was in town.

ooOoo

Morgan had the tiny golf course manicured and ready. Saturdays were his big days. It was also the day when Alex parked her food truck out front. Tacos from a beautiful redhead who was not taller than him. Saturdays were good days.

He picked up the box of pencils and put it on the counter alongside the scorecards. Then he noticed the box was nearly empty. He couldn't figure it out. Who would steal a stubby pencil that read "Grimes Putts the Fun in the Hole _"_?

But someone kept taking them. Maybe he could hire Chuck and Chuck could solve the crime.

* * *

 **A/N2** A break from the heavy lifting of (Mis)Ed.


	2. Do Not Pass Go?

**A/N1** Posting two chapters tonight, Chapters Two and Three.

Love to hear your thoughts on each and on the story.

Time for an Ellie-arranged blind date.

Don't own _Chuck._ Kinda liked the show though.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TWO

 _Do Not Pass Go?_

* * *

 _Saturday, March 25_

* * *

Coffee seemed safe.

Sarah got to the shop early and got a seat against the wall but with a good view of the door. She would be able to see him coming - and, if worse came to worse - she was close enough to the back door to beat a hasty retreat. It turned out that Ellie had been calling Sarah to warn her that she had given Sarah's number to Chuck ( _really? Chuck?_ ) and advised him to call. Sarah really did like Ellie, but that was presuming on their new friendship. But Sarah also had to admit that she was...curious.

Ellie had not said much, but she had told Sarah a bit about her brother. Her description made almost no sense. The man she described was a computer whiz, an electronics genius, a Stanford scholarship guy (although he had not graduated - Ellie had added that without elaborating), but now working as a private detective in LA. _A private detective?_

Sarah had been both intrigued and disheartened by that. PI. Intrigued: there was a seedy glamour surrounding the job, a Raymond Chandler tang that the thought of it carried. _Almost all certainly false_ , Sarah reminded herself. And that was connected to: Disheartened: Sarah had spent her childhood and her high school years with her conman father. He had just come through town on another con, and was gone again. _The first time I've seen him in two years and I get one lousy brunch. At least the food was good And it was good to see him._ She had eventually quit, walked away from that life and gone to college, got her teaching degree. Before the ink on the degree was dry, she was hired at the kindergarten and she had been working there for the last few years.

She had put _seedy_ behind her. Sometimes she missed the challenge, the intellectual challenge, of the con life, the on-the-edge quality it had, but she only missed it sometimes. Her life was good. She loved her kids. She loved teaching. But admittedly, she was lonely - a low-volume, background-noise loneliness. It did not make her unhappy, it just sapped some of her happiness.

Her father, the way he was, what he taught her, - all that had made it hard for her to trust anyone, but especially men. Her beauty compounded her problem, since there was always a question about what they were really interested in - Sarah or the leggy, blue-eyed blonde. With most, the answer came quickly: the blonde, not Sarah. She had accepted that she was bad at relationships and had given up, sort of, and just drifted in her personal life for the last year or more. She had dated a few times, but not seen any man more than once. She shared her life and herself only with her kids.

She was looking out the window as she sat thinking. She saw him. She was sure it was him. The coloring - brown hair, curly - the set of the shoulders - the quick smile he gave the meter maid as she stared at his massive old American car ( _what the hell is that thing?_ ) - all of it reminded her of Ellie. Family resemblance.

She did not let her gaze rest long on the car. She focused on him. Chuck. He was tall, not skinny but thin, lanky. Broad shouldered. He had on a worn sports coat, over a dark t-shirt. Jeans, high-topped Converse tennis shoes. _Really? Not the sort of gumshoe I expected._ The sports coat was worn, but it draped nicely on him and it had clearly been expensive in its time. He did not look Columbo-rumpled or Nick Charles-polished; he looked like a lanky version of Phillip Marlowe (the Elliot Gould version in _The Long Goodbye_ ).

"Hi," he offered, self-consciously, as he arrived at the table. Obviously, Ellie had given him a description of her; he had come directly to her when he entered the shop. He gave her a smile, and the look of it, the boyish charm of it, and something about his eyes, no his gaze...Something about that smile stirred parts of Sarah that had been dormant for a long while. She swallowed hard, trying to regain her normal self-control.

"Hi," she offered in return, her voice sounding even more enthusiastic than she expected.

ooOoo

As he entered the coffee shop, he saw her. Ellie had told him she was beautiful. Ellie had understated so completely that it was as if she had said something false. She - _Sarah, her name is Sarah, don't be an idiot and forget_ \- was beautiful but she was so much more than that. It was like she was the only thing in Chuck's immediate environment that was real. Everything else dulled, stretched, emptied, stepped back: it was all background to her: she was the figure in the foreground. _Hell, she is the foreground._ Chuck almost turned around. There was simply no earthly chance that woman was going to have coffee with him, much less like him. But he had canceled or weaseled on Ellie's good intentions too many times already, and Ellie was so _sure_ about Sarah.

She had her hair pulled back, a long ponytail. If she had on makeup, Chuck could not tell. She had on a blue blouse with small blue buttons. Her eyes were so blue it made the blue of her blouse look like their reflection, the buttons envious of their blue. _Can anything be blue with envy?_

Chuck managed to get out a single word. "Hi!"

When she smiled and answered, he thought for a moment he would pass out, or just shrink and vanish like that constricting circle of light on just-turned-off, old-time televisions. That smile was impossible - an intergalactic anomaly. A singularity. _What is a singularity again? Do I remember? Do I care?_

ooOoo

After introductions, they awkwardly walked up to the counter and ordered coffee. Chuck was careful to order the cheapest cup; he didn't have much money. Sarah ordered the same and Chuck paid. The took their cups back to the table where Sarah had been seated.

ooOoo

Sarah had never been able to shake her father's lessons completely. She still sized up everyone she met, took stock of them in a lightning-quick assessment.

Chuck's sports coat matched his watch, on old '60s-style diver's compressor. A good maker. Taken care of but showing its age. Maybe an heirloom or bought second-hand. The hard look he had taken at the menu and the easy item he ordered made her guess that he was not awash in money. _Dad would guess, what?, maybe a couple of thousand in the bank, on payday. A schnook._ But Sarah liked him, liked him immediately. She could hear her dad in her head. " _Don't just respond to the mark. Always a choice. Control what you do. Everything. You are an act, remember, not a person. Nothing spontaneous, everything seeming spontaneous. Try it again."_

But her smile at Chuck had been spontaneous. So had the liking. _I am a person, Dad._

ooOoo

Chuck noticed, as they sat down, that not only were Sarah's eyes blue, they were complicated - her gaze was complicated. Her attention seemed divided. _Probably not into me at all. Just trying to figure how to choke down her coffee and make her getaway._ His spirits, previously running high, sank. _Who am I kidding? She probably dates actors. Good looking guys with tons of ready cash. Why would Ellie be so sure we should meet?_

Chuck began the conversation with something, someone, they shared.

"So, you and Ellie are friends?"

Sarah grinned. "Yes. I think Ellie decided that we would be just a moment or two after we met and, well…"

"And there is no resisting her...I know. She...I've spent a lifetime unsuccessfully resisting my sister. If she were evil, she would rule the world."

Sarah laughed at that, obviously in complete agreement.

"Um...since we mentioned that...Look, Sarah, I don't mean to make this awkward... _more_ awkward...but if she pushed you into this, and if you'd rather be somewhere else, like undergoing an emergency appendectomy, I'd understand. You can leave and there'd be no hard feelings. I can come up with a story for Ellie. She thinks I'm romantically challenged anyway…" _Did I really just admit that?_

Sarah's look became more complicated for a second, and Chuck thought she was going to take him up on the offer, but then she suddenly began to giggle. "Emergency appendectomy? How bad do you think spending a little time with you really is, Chuck?" Her saying his name was like an incantation: he felt her magic. He had never met anyone like her, he was sure of that, even if he had just met her.

He grinned back at her, chuckling himself. "Well, when your sister suggests you should get a hangtag, like the ones for handicapped parking, but displaying a broken heart, it's hard to summon up oodles of confidence."

She giggled again. "'Oodles'?" She caressed the word unselfconsciously. "I didn't know anyone still used that word."

Chuck blushed. Hearing her say that word as she said it...affected him. _Wow. She makes 'oodles' sexy. Focus, Chuck. Make conversation._

ooOoo

 _He's funny. And to admit what he just admitted, to give me an out, not part of a pathetic love-me-because-I'm-pitiful ploy, but just frankly, generously. Who the hell is this guy?_

She fell quickly into his diverting, companionable conversation. He seemed to intuit her reticence to talk much about herself personally, so he kept the conversation focused on Ellie, the gym, her work, his work. Sarah was delighted by him.

As they talked about his work, an idea that Sarah had when Ellie told her about Chuck came back to mind. Irresistibly. Sasha. Sarah was still worried about Sasha. There had been more bad dreams that week. She had no place poking into Sasha's home life or intruding on her parents and their lives, but she wanted to know more about what was going on.

Maybe she could hire Chuck to look into the family, maybe to sort of take a look around, see if there was something...strange...going on. Sarah's instincts were not as sharp as they had been back in the day, working with her father, but they were still there. And they told her something was off.

Calling Child Services - perhaps the appropriate next step and perhaps what she would end up doing - was drastic. Once that Pandora's Box was open, there was no closing it, and she did not want to cast suspicion wrongly. She did not want to harm Sasha or her family. She just wanted to make sure the little girl was okay. Chuck seemed like the perfect person to help her.

She thought it was worth asking. She told him the story about Sasha, getting immersed in the details and in her worries about her little student. He was immediately concerned for Sasha too, gripped by the story.

Sarah finished and looked at Chuck. "So, do you think you could, you know, i _nvestigate_ this, a little, for me? Just see what you can find out? I'm not talking anything large-scale or invasive. I would just like to quiet my mind."

Chuck nodded but she could see him mentally step back, his gaze less fully present. _Maybe he's just thinking about whether he should._ "So you want to _hire_ me? You're going to be my _client?_ "

Sarah wasn't sure what he was thinking, driving at. "Yes, Ellie made it sound like you could use the work, and I...have a little money I can use this way."

The slight absence in his eyes was still there. _Why? Is he going to say no?_

"Well...this is an irregular...sort of thing. If the family finds out I am doing it, it could come back on you. Get you into trouble. Overstepping your teacherly bounds. You know that, right?"

She nodded. "I do. But I trust you, Chuck. They won't find out, and it really would put my mind at ease. I came sort of hoping you might be willing to do this."

"Oh." He glanced away, then back. "Sure. I mean how could I not help Sasha? I may be down on my luck, but I'm no hard case."

Sarah was so pleased that he accepted that stopped thinking about the change in his demeanor. They finished their coffee. He pulled out a small wire-bound notebook and a short green pencil and made a few notes. She watched him, wondering what the white print on the pencil said but unable to make it out because of the largeness of Chuck's hand and the smallness of the print.

She was surprised when Chuck told her he needed to go. They walked out together. He walked her to her Porsche.

"So, I will do this," he said when they stopped in front of her car, "but not for pay. It probably won't take much time, anyway. I will call you...you know, about the investigation. Um, you know, after I have started investigating."

"But, Chuck, really, I can pay." She looked at him, he was looking at the Porsche.

His shoulders sank a bit. "No, really, no. I didn't come here to get work." He hurried on. "I mean - I had a nice time. I really did. It really was terrific to meet you."

He shook her hand and walked away. She watched him go, feeling warm all over. Even if she was a little disappointed the evening had ended - and ended in a handshake. She had thought a kiss might be in the evenings future, and she was very curious about what that would be like. She had wanted to take a closer look at his brown eyes.

.

She was in the car and driving away before she realized what she had done. _How clueless can I be?_

"Shit!" She spoke it aloud in the Porsche.

ooOoo

Chuck urged the Crown Vic into traffic, its engine clattering in unamused, belabored response.

At least he had something to do, a real case. Odd case. No money. No money - because how could he take money from her, given how he felt? But what did the way he felt matter?

What was a kindergarten teacher doing with ready cash for a PI? Driving a Porsche? Was she up to something? But what?

It didn't seem like it. She seemed genuinely concerned about the little girl. She really was a school teacher. Ellie had lunch with her and her kids at school one day when they were first getting to know each other.

Still, her gaze had so often been complicated, divided.

The way she had looked at him, examined him when they ordered: cool, thorough, assessing. Her blue eyes were deep water. What had she been thinking?

She was a real kindergarten teacher, but she was not a normal kindergarten teacher.

And then that conversation. So good - until the end. Now the evening seemed less a blind date and more a job interview. _Figures. I had no shot._

"Shit," he whispered to himself.

* * *

 **A/N2** More to come, if folks are interested. Let me know.

Z


	3. Miniature Golf

**A/N1** The second of two chapters posting tonight. Still describing the pieces and putting them on the board. The story proper about to begin.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER THREE

Miniature Golf?

* * *

 _Later, Saturday, March 25_

* * *

Chuck captained the Crown Vic into the parking lot of Grimes' Miniature Golf. He had nothing to do with the rest of his evening, now that he had taken a job from Sarah Walker and said goodbye to her. He had hoped she might like him enough to want to extend the evening, maybe to get dinner or take a walk.

Something.

He sighed. Difficult to meet a woman like that and know she wasn't into you. A painful reminder of one's place in the Greater Scheme of Things. And those eyes...yeah.

 _Sigh._

He shut off the car. It shook as the engine died. It always did. He knew eventually the shake would be a death rattle, and the old girl would never start again. He patted the steering wheel in encouragement and reluctant fondness. He got out.

The putt putt crowd was thinning out. But it looked like it had been a good evening. Alex's taco truck was open still, the interior lights blazing. Chuck strolled over and got to the window. Alex was standing in front of the grill, arms akimbo, in deep thought. Chuck laughed to himself, then spoke softly, wanting to get her attention but not startle her.

"Another taco challenge from Morgan?"

Alex wheeled toward him, grinning before she was facing him. "Chuck! How's my favorite dick?"

Chuck blanched, waving his hands. "Alex, would you please stop that? There are kids around. Adults too."

"What? A grown woman can't say hello to a dick when she sees one?"

An older woman approached the window. She stopped when she heard the conversation. She retreated.

Alex noticed and watched her go with a shrug. "No shirt, no shoes, no sense of humor: no service." Her eyes glinted in malice. "Hey, lady," she called out, sweetly, loudly. "I have a taco named after him. It's called Tall, Dick, and Curly. You'd like it! I think you need it." The woman picked up her pace, after looking back over her shoulder in horror.

Chuck shook his head, embarrassed for everyone. "Morgan is not going to be happy, you running off more customers."

Alex shrugged again. "If that moron would just go ahead and ask me out, I wouldn't be so uptight and disagreeable on Saturday nights."

"The little bearded man still scared of the question?"

She pinched her face into a giant frown and nodded.

"You could make it easy on him, just ask him out?" Chuck suggested.

"No, dammit. If he wants me, he had to earn me. I'm like that sword, you know, the one in the stone. He's gotta pull me out."

"Excaliber? Yeah, well, I think Morgan's imagining his sword going the other direction," Chuck quipped, blushing at his own words.

In response, Alex closed her eyes, bit her lower lip, and sighed sensually; she shook gently all over, finishing with another deep, annoyed frown. When she opened her eyes, she saw that Chuck's blush had deepened as he watched her.

"See what I mean? Uptight and disagreeable. Morgan had better get it together soon, or I'm gonna park my taco truck somewhere else. - So, you wanna Tall, Dick and Curly?"

Chuck winced. "You know I can barely eat it after you call it that...but, yeah, two. And a coke."

Alex turned and made his food. Chuck put took a ten from his wallet and put it on the counter. She traded him the food for it. He carried the tacos and the coke into the side door of the small building out of which Morgan ran the course.

Inside, Morgan was perched on a stool, watching the final groups head into the Back Nine.

"Hey, Morg. Alex is...um...ready for you."

Morgan's eyes got big. "Don't talk to me like that, Chuck. You know I'm trying. I just like her so much. I'm afraid she'll say no."

"She won't. She's told everyone she will say yes. She is waiting to say yes to you. And I mean _yes,_ Morgan."

Morgan's eyes got bigger. "God, now I'm even more terrified. You know I have performance anxiety..."

"Morg, at the risk of being cruel, no one can know that you have performance anxiety. _Pre_ -performance anxiety, yes. Performance anxiety, no."

Morgan looked hurt. "That is not cool, man. Not cool. You can't be letting people know that."

Chuck put his food and coke on the counter and sat down beside his friend. "Just kidding, Morgan. But not about Alex saying yes. And, if you don't ask soon, I worry she's going to give up and find another venue if you know what I mean."

"I do. Tonight. I will do it tonight."

"You've made the same promise the last three Saturdays, Morg. I just don't believe you. But that beautiful little redhead is out there, waiting for you to pull your sword from the stone." Chuck stopped, thought. "I think the metaphor is getting a little twisted now. Anyhoo…"

Morgan interrupted. "So, another Saturday night stalking the Jill-bot?" Morgan's nervousness around Alex was only outstripped by his dislike of Chuck's old girlfriend.

"I haven't been stalking her, Morg."

Morgan looked skeptical. "Call it what you will, Chuck…"

"I'm doing a favor for Casey. You know that. Besides, Jill is out of town tonight."

"See! Stalker much? Stalk her much?"

"Stop saying that so loud, Morg. You know Casey's suspicious of her big client, the pharmaceutical company, FARMA. He's been curious why, Jill, their top corporate lawyer, suddenly seems so eager to date someone higher up the law enforcement food chain."

"'Cause a detective is a bottom feeder, right, Catfish?"

"Watch it, O He Whose Sword Has Never Known the Lady of the Lake - Or Any Lady."

Morgan looked suitably chastised.

"Yeah, Chuck, I know all that. You've explained it. But it seems like Casey's got nothing but suspicion and like you've agreed just so you can tail the Jill-bot."

"I admit. It looks like there's nothing to be suspicious of, other than her changed taste in men."

"Right, from catfish to fish eggs." Morgan paused, grinning. "You get it? 'Cause Larkin's got tiny…"

Two young boys arrived at the counter, putting their clubs and pencils on it, and Chuck cleared his throat loudly. He smiled at the two boys.

" _Balls_. My friend here was wondering if you had your golf balls?"

One of the boys gave a nonchalant shrug. "Nah, mister, that big clown head on 18 ate 'em and didn't spit 'em back up, like the sign said it would. It's a cheat."

Chuck looked at Morgan. "Chesko's acting up again? Jeez, every Saturday night, it's the same thing…"

Morgan collected the clubs and pencils. He grabbed a wrench and a hammer from beneath the counter and jumped over it. "You coming, Chuck? The clown head awaits." Morgan gave an evil laugh as he turned to look back at Chuck.

"Morg, you know clowns creep me out. Especially Chesko. Those spinning eyes…The spittle...I mean, I know its just water from the garden hose, but it's warm!"

"Oh, come on, you big baby. I can use the help." Morgan's voice became sing-songy: "I won't let the big mean clown head spit on the tall, gun-toting private detective…"

"Oh, shut up, Morgan." Chuck vaulted the counter. He stopped, slipped his hand in the pencil box, and grabbed a couple without Morgan noticing. His long legs let him catch up with Morgan immediately. Both men laughed as they headed for 18.

Chuck would eat later, after facing Chesko.

ooOoo

Sarah had taken off her clothes and put on her pajamas. She had her phone in her hands.

She was debating. She wanted to call Chuck and tell him that she had not meant the evening to turn out as it had. That it had been a date, and a good one. So good she wanted there to be more. But she didn't know exactly how to say it. She'd gotten so involved in Sasha and the possibility of Chuck helping that she had lost track of how it seemed to Chuck. _God, he must have thought I agreed to the date only to see if I could hire him._

Sarah started to call Chuck when she had a thought. She was bad at relationships. Always had been. Trust issues. Fears about commitment. Not about making a commitment herself, but whether she could trust any man's commitment to her, trust his motives, his intentions. She meant it when she told Chuck she trusted him. She had a good feeling about him. But if she labeled this thing between them a romance, she worried that the good feeling would fleet and leave her the mistrustful former conwoman she normally became when she started dating.

Maybe she could see Chuck without exactly dating him?. At least for a little while, during the time he was looking into Sasha and her family? He said it wouldn't take long...But maybe it would be long enough for this... _whatever this is_...feeling she felt for him to _take._ Maybe she could keep herself from her usual skittish responses by not treating their time together as _dating_ time. _Even if it is._ They could have... _meetings_...they could... _consult_. And maybe, once they'd figured out the Sasha thing, maybe then she could ask him out, but already be past the mistrust thing, ask him out when he was already her boyfriend. But before he knew he was her boyfriend.

It sounded stupid in her head, but for some reason, it _felt_ like a good plan. All her earlier attempts at romance had flopped or fizzled or faded. Maybe she could sneak up on something, something good, something real, if she came at it indirectly, sort of on tiptoes.

Did it make any sense to think you could sneak up on love, like a spy, capture it unawares, before it saw you coming?

She wasn't sure.

 _Did I just think the word, 'love'?_ _Don't dwell, Sarah. Move along. He's just working for you._

* * *

 **A/N2** Tune in next time as Chuck starts working on the case and Sarah commences her strategy for dating-not-dating Chuck. Will Morgan ever pull his sword from the stone, or _whatever_? An answer ahead in our story, although it may not be in the next chapter.

If you are following (Mis)Ed, expect a chapter of it soon - in the next few days. I probably won't return to this until the New Traditionalist arc is completed in (Mis)Ed.

Let me know your thoughts on this chapter and the last, please.

Zettel


	4. Don't Break the Ice!

**A/N1** Response to this has been favorable enough for me to decide to slow it down. It still won't be very long, but it won't be quite as short as I originally planned. And I am having fun with it, I admit.

Don't Own _Chuck_.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER FOUR

 _Don't Break the Ice!_

* * *

 _Monday, March 27_

* * *

Sarah had been up since dawn, unable to sleep.

She had been fighting the urge to call Chuck since Saturday. Even her dating-not-dating plan had done nothing to reduce the urge. It had gotten her to wait until Monday morning and she was eager. She wanted to hear his voice, to make contact. She wanted to hear the warmth in his voice and to allow him to hear the warmth in her voice. She barely knew him -but she missed him.

She needed to get a shower, get dressed and get to work, but she had enough time to call if she kept the conversation short. She called him, expecting him to be in the office.

Ellie had told her that when Chuck had a case, he was typically an early riser. Ellie admired her brother's willingness to work, despite the fact, admitted by Ellie, that he never seemed to make any money. Sarah laughed to herself. _These Bartowskis, honest to a fault. Dad would break out in hives. How can Chuck be a PI and be a Bartowski, be that honest, open?_ Sarah was both charmed by Ellie's honesty about her brother (in the midst of trying to set up a blind date) and flattered by Ellie's certainty that Chuck's lack of money would not be a problem for Sarah.

Money was not Sarah's problem. It had never been her focus (not like it was her dad's). Chuck's lack of it didn't matter to her at all. Truth be told, she had plenty of money. That was a complicated story.

Just before she walked out of the con life, she and her father had been working a big score, a serious con for _serious_ money. But it disagreed with Sarah, that con, the whole life, more every day. She pulled out just before her dad could close the deal. He was furious with her eleventh-hour change of heart.

But then things went sideways with a vengeance.

She and her dad ended up with a briefcase full of money that did not quite belong to anyone, not legally anyway. They took possession of it. Her dad was ecstatic; he had big plans for the money. More cons, a bigger team, flashy equipment.

Sarah had other, smaller plans. She demanded half and she walked away. She had put the money in various banks, had a friend of her dad's help her create the right sort of accounts. She kept enough out to pay for school, buy her apartment. And buy - used - the Porsche she had always dreamed of. Long story - but then all of it was, all of it with her dad.

The Porsche was her one extravagance, the one thing she didn't need but wanted. Otherwise, and since then, she lived on her salary, within her means. The money in the banks kept increasing because of interest, but Sarah had not been able to get herself to spend it.

She dialed her poor private detective, her heart beating fast in her chest as his phone began to ring.

ooOoo

Chuck's phone rang. He had just put it on the desk with his cup of coffee, and was taking off his sports coat. It was Sarah Walker. _First thing Monday morning_. Beautiful, _sigh_ , but evidently a taskmaster. No chance to even sip his coffee and prepare to have to talk to her as his employer.

He had been trying to figure out how to think about her as nothing but his employer all weekend. He hadn't had any luck. His palms were immediately sweaty and he was gasping slightly. He felt himself blush and he was alone in the office. _Sigh._

" _Bartowski Investigations: You Question, We Answer._ How can I help you?" _Oh, my God, tell me I did not just answer the phone like that?_

On second thought, Chuck thought maybe that was good, _set the right tone_ , even if he had done it on automatic pilot. He always answered business calls like that. Now that he thought about it, he wondered if maybe he was not making any money because was using Morgan's suggestion for a slogan. The same man who _Putts the Fun in the Hole. Gah._

He heard Sarah giggle down the line. _I could listen to that forever. Oodles of her giggles. Oodles of her. Oodles. Stop it, Chuck._ His private blush deepened.

"Chuck, is this you? You sound funny; is something wrong with your phone, are you sick?" She sounded concerned but still sort of giggly.

"No, nothing wrong, not sick. That was my...uh...Philip Marlowe voice. Ellie says I sound more like a member of the Geek Squad than a private detective, so I thought…"

"...That you would answer the phone sounding a little like Bogart?"

"Uh...yeah." He felt a fool.

But Sarah giggled again, right out. "Tell you what, if you answer like that next time I call, I will talk to you in my best Lauren Bacall voice. Vivian Rutledge, right?"

Chuck couldn't answer. The thought of Sarah talking to him in that voice made him sit down and cross his legs. Even though he was alone. A blush was bad enough but a…

"Chuck, are you there?" She had done it, breathy and raspy, fleshy rose petals and thorns, all Bacall. Chuck crossed his legs the other direction and his eyes crossed, or it felt like it. Everything went out of focus for a moment. _How'd she do that? The voice was perfect._

"Yeah, yeah, Vivian, I'm here." He cleared his throat and tried to talk in his normal voice, but it came out high, Venetian choirboy high. Sarah giggled merrily.

Chuck felt crazed, off balance, achy with sudden need. He had to find some control. Adjusting his voice again, he managed finally to sound like himself. "So, I assume you are calling about Sasha, the job?"

There was a long silence on the other end.

ooOoo

 _Dammit. I am supposed to be the client. Not his girlfriend, not flirting like a woman... possessed. Calm down, Sarah. Be...professional. You were a conwoman. You can do this. Dad taught you to control yourself, everything. Control._

She had an idea. _Yes, that's a good idea._

"Right. Right. Yes, Sasha. I thought it might be a good idea if you met her."

"Met her? Ok, how?"

"We're having an activity day in my class. I can put you on the visitor's list as a personal friend. You'll have to go to the office and show your ID. They'll give you a stick-on badge. They can tell you where the classroom is. Can you do that? I know it's short notice."

"Sure. I was planning computer background work today. I can do that anytime. When should I come by?"

"About 10:15. They have lunch at 10:45. That'll give you some time to meet her and we can talk...consult...during my lunch hour, when my TA takes them to the cafeteria. Will that do?"

"Yeah, sure. Should I bring something for me to eat?"

"That's a good idea if you can eat on kindergarten kids' and their teacher's weird schedule."

Chuck laughed briefly. "I can eat anytime. Can I bring you something?"

Sarah was silent for a moment. _I should say no. I made my lunch last night._

"Sure, that'd be...nice. See you then. Burbank Early Education Center, if Ellie hasn't told you. Do you think you can find it?"

"Yeah," Chuck laughed again, "there're instructions on p. 47 of _How to Be a Detective in Ten Easy Lessons_ explaining how to find buildings using addresses."

Sarah was quiet for a moment. She wondered if maybe he was resentful about the other night. But then she realized: "Oh, oh...lines from _The Big Sleep._ The correspondence school book."

They laughed together then. Chuck said goodbye. She said the same, then ended the call. She needed to hurry if she was going to get to school on time. In the shower, she washed her face, of course, but couldn't remove the smile.

ooOoo

Chuck had half-managed to recover from the call, from the Bacall voice. His pants were looser. He picked up his coffee and was mid-swig when his office door opened and John Casey entered. 'Entered' was hardly the right verb. But there wasn't a good one available, no word for describing a moving volcano of contained molten rage.

Casey was a good man but he was no bargain as a friend. Things had gotten worse in the last year, when he had discovered Alex, and so discovered he was a father. The two of them did not get along. Chuck never talked about one to the other unless asked to or taken there in the conversation. He thought things had stabilized, but then Alex met Morgan. Casey was not a Morgan Grimes fan. In fact, he cheered against the little bearded man. Casey was quite sure that he could grab a guy out of any random line-up at the station and find someone better for his little girl. Chuck was caught in the middle of a geometrically problematic three-way tug of war.

Casey filled the office. He forced himself into Chuck's one client chair. The chair squeaked in aching protest, obviously in real pain. Chuck had a running bet with himself about how many times Casey could wedge himself into the chair before the chair collapsed. Next time would tell if he won or lost the bet with himself, since for now, the chair seemed to be hanging together.

"So, you have seen the troll?"

"Would that be Morgan Grimes, my best friend, of whom you speak?" Chuck asked, using both the name and the silly construction to annoy Casey. He liked to poke the grizzly. Like a grizzly, Casey rumbled in response, the sound coming not from his throat or even his chest, but from all of him. Chuck involuntarily gulped and decided the poking was over for the morning.

"Yeah, Grimes." The name was a curse coming off Casey's curled lip. "The troll."

"I saw him Saturday, as it happens." Chuck gulped again. He hadn't intended to keep using the mock-formal phrases. Luckily, Casey merely blinked in annoyance, then gave Chuck a hard-eyed stare.

"See anyone else?"

Chuck knew they were working their way to Alex. "Well, as usual, there was a taco truck parked outside, run by a very bright and quick-tongued young woman…"

Casey leaned forward, a redwood threatening to fall. "Did you say 'quick-tongued', Bartowski?"

"I meant...well-spoken. Just _well-spoken_."

Casey leaned back and the chair whimpered piteously. "That's what I thought. Her hair?"

"Still red."

"Dammit."

Alex had recently colored her hair. This probably would not have caused Casey any more annoyance than anything else she did, but Casey knew the story because Chuck told it one day without thinking.

A few months ago, in an event that threatened the very fabric of space-time itself (at least that was how Chuck saw it), Morgan had somehow gotten a date with the willowy beauty, Carina Miller. Carina was a lingerie model, and she worked part-time at Sexy Underpants, Etc. Morgan had asked her out and kept asking her out and she had finally agreed. They had gone out the one time and never again. Morgan confessed afterward that his fantasy of seeing her sexy underpants, etc., had not been realized. A few weeks later, Morgan met Alex. The first time they talked, who would show up to play putt-putt but Carina and her date, a man who obviously made a living posing shirtless for romance novel covers.

Alex had seen Morgan look at Carina, and she decided that he had a type: leggy redheads. Short of an as-yet-unavailable surgery, she could do nothing about the leggy part, but she promptly colored her hair. Morgan so far had not had the nerve really to have many conversations with Alex at all, much less one in which he explained that he was not particularly drawn to redheads.

Casey hated that Alex had done such a thing for a man who was, figuratively and literally, beneath her. Alex was not as tall as Carina, of course, but no one was as short as Morgan - at least that is how it seemed to Chuck, although he had actually never seen them standing quite side-by-side. Either she was in the truck or Morgan was on his stool.

"C'mon, Casey, have a little faith in the Morg. He's a good guy, really. Do you think I would have him as my friend if he wasn't?"

Casey looked at Chuck like he was a rotting fish. He even wrinkled his nose in distaste. "You dated that legal skank, Roberts."

Chuck had no retort for that. Indeed, he had dated Jill. "Speaking of, Casey," Chuck plunged in, eager to change the angle on the subject even if he could not change the subject, "can you tell me anything more about why you think Jill is involved in something at FARMA? I've been following her as you asked, but I have nothing to report except that she and Larkin seem to like The Three Rooks restaurant. They eat there a lot."

Casey sat, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "I have my reasons, Bartowski. I will share them soon. Just keep watching her on Saturdays."

"Well, the problem is that I have a case."

Casey's eyes bulged. "Say it ain't so. Stretch Columbo has an actual, breathing case?" Then Casey's eyes narrowed. "But you're working it _gratis_ aren't you?"

Chuck's shoulders slumped before he could stop it. Casey grunted twice. "You are pathetic, Bartowski. One day, you are going to find someone to be serious about, other than legal skank, and you are going to lose her 'cause your pockets are full of _gratis._ "

Chuck looked down at his high-topped sneakers. Casey was right. But he couldn't charge Sarah. He still did not understand how she could have offered to pay him. Kindergarten teaching was not exactly lucrative. _And that Porsche?_

Casey was regarding him speculatively, but he said nothing. "You been keeping your gun clean?"

Chuck gathered his lips on one side of his face. "Is that a personal question or are you really asking about my _sidearm_?"

"Your sidearm, numbnuts. Why would I ask about the other? Besides, I know the answer. You ain't since legal skank, and I doubt you did then much at the end. With legal skank."

"Look, Casey, I get that you don't like her. I can't say I like her much right now, either. But stop calling her that, please."

Casey bared his teeth and Chuck had no idea what that meant. Casey asked again: "So, have you been keeping your gun clean?"

Chuck sighed. "Yes."

"How long has it been since you fired it?"

"I don't know. A while." Chuck squirmed a little. He saw Casey frown. "What? It's like riding a bike."

"No, numbnuts, it's like shooting a gun. Riding a bike is something completely different. Why don't you give this up? You are not cut out for this, Bartowski."

Chuck got this lecture about once a month. It was true that he was not, so far, a great detective. He was hardly a marginal detective. But he had helped some people and he was eating. He had a place to stay (yes, technically, he was renting a room in Ellie's apartment), and he was getting along. Maybe one day he'd start that AI company he dreamed of. Maybe. But for now, this was his job. He liked it about three-quarters of the time.

Casey got up. "We'll talk again soon, Bartowski. Tell Grimes I will kill him if he touches my little girl. Not just kill him. Kill him _dead_."

Casey left with that threat thickening the air. Chuck shook his head. He sipped his coffee. Cold. He thought of Sarah breathing Lauren Bacall into the phone. He thought about going to the range. It had been a long time - _both ways_. But he had other things to do. He put his phone in his pocket and took the cold coffee with him. Better than nothing. He had a couple of things to see about. Then he was going to meet Sasha and have lunch with his client.

* * *

 **A/N2** Tune in next time: Chuck meets Sasha and eats lunch with Sarah, the case begins to deepen, Casey tells Chuck more about his suspicions, Alex physically attacks Morgan. Chapter 5, "Sandbox".


	5. Sandbox

**A/N1** More of my little _noir_ farce.

I like writing humor much more than angst. But some stories are angsty - and you have to go where the story takes you. This ain't one of those stories. An occasional angsty sprinkle, that's all. Promise.

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER FIVE

 _Sandbox_

* * *

 _Later, Monday, March 27_

* * *

Chuck navigated the Crown Vic into an empty spot in the Early Education parking lot. It was crowded and it took him a few minutes to find one. He was worried that he would be late. He shut the engine down and waited through the shaking. He patted the steering wheel, hoping it would start when he came back. "Take a nice rest, old girl. I mean, not that you are old. Classic. _Classic_ girl."

Chuck made himself stop talking to the car and get out. He went to the main office, showed his ID and signed next to his name on the checklist. His name was written in a small, neat cursive hand, and he was listed as a guest of Sarah Walker. _Even her penmanship is sexy. I am so lost._

He walked down the hallway, sticking his name tag to his shirt: "Chuck". Evidently, the Center divided itself into sections called 'pods'. Sarah's class was in the Green Pod. The hallway to it was painted a little darker than Kelly Green.

Chuck realized it was the same green as the Buy More not far from where he lived. There was even yellow-gold trim in the hallway. Chuck shook his head. He thought about a summer job at the Buy More once but decided he just couldn't be a Nerd Herder. A nerd, yes, but not a herder of nerds. He had no such delusions of grandeur. He ended up working at a small burger joint, flipping burgers and frying fries. Wearing a little paper hat. He grimaced when he thought about it.

He walked down the hallway to Sarah's room. He had a bag of tacos from Alex's truck in his hand.

The classroom door was closed but there was a large window in it, and he could see the kids arranged in a semi-circle around Sarah. She was holding a book. Through the glass, Chuck could tell it was a Dr. Suess book. At one point, Sarah held it up so the enthralled kids could better see the picture, and he saw the title: _Please Try to Remember the First of Octember._ He knew that one. Not many people did. Chuck loved Suess.

He opened the door quietly, stepped inside, and closed it quietly. Sarah did not stop reading, but another woman in the class, younger than Sarah - college age - noticed him, smiled and nodded. Sarah was talking to the kids about the book, about the months of the year, and about wishes - that some come true and some do not. Chuck watched Sarah as she finished up. She was so beautiful his chest ached as he looked at her. And her way with the kids! They were obviously crazy about her, hanging on every word. He looked at her and thought about wishes himself - that some come true and some do not. _Sigh._

Sarah stood and turned, noticing him for the first time. She gave him that smile again, the one from the coffee shop, and Chuck made a wish in its light. Not even as a kid had he wished as he did then. Whatever remnants of Jill had clung to him burned away in that wish, in the light of Sarah's smile. He had known since the coffee shop that Sarah had claimed him but he hadn't really faced it. He did, standing there, looking at her, surrounded by smiling little faces, almost all smiling curiously at him.

"Class," Sarah said, turning from him back to the kids, "this is my friend, the one I told you would visit. This is Mr. Chuck." There was a chorus of small voices: "Hi, Mr. Chuck!" Chuck waved and smiled.

Sarah looked back at him. "The kids are going to have some time to color or work on art projects. Would you join us, Mr. Chuck?"

Chuck nodded. Sarah motioned for the kids to go to their desks and they moved to them and sat down. Sarah pointed at one open desk. She walked over and pulled the tiny chair from underneath it. "Sit here, Mr. Chuck, next to Sasha." Chuck handed Sarah the taco bag and she put it on her desk.

Chuck walked over and sat down. The seat was so tiny and his legs so long that his knees seemed almost even with his ears. He saw Sarah put her hand in front of her face, hiding a grin. "Chuck, this is Sasha Monroe." Chuck looked at the little girl. She had black curly hair and very light blue eyes. She gave him a hesitant smile, clearly a little intimidated by his dramatically folded length.

"Hey, Sasha," Chuck said, careful to keep his tone normal, not to slip into singsong. "What are you working on?"

"I'm coloring this picture of a frog." Sasha held up a page taken from a coloring book. On it was a drawing of a chubby frog on an expansive lily pad. The frog was partially colored green. Its eyes were fiery red.

"That's really good, Sasha. How did you decide what color you wanted for the eyes?"

Sasha shrugged. "Bobby," she pointed at a redheaded boy on the other side of the room, a kid with a sneaky look, "took the box of crayons and all I could find was a piece of a red one." Sasha took a moment to contemplate the frog, staring into its eyes. "It makes him look sorta scary, doesn't it?" She looked at Chuck, frowning.

ooOoo

Sarah pulled her chair from the reading circle and was sitting in it, listening. Chuck met Sasha's frown with a big, kind grin.

"Nah. Not scary. Intense, you know, like he's letting the other frogs know that's _his_ pad. Bobby Frog isn't going to be allowed to come take it."

Sasha thought about that for a minute, then she gave Chuck a crooked grin. She fished a red crayon out of the box on the table and started coloring, biting her tongue in concentration so that just the tip of it showed, intent on darkening the red of the frog's eyes. Chuck picked a green crayon, a shade or two lighter than the frog, and began to color the lily pad. Sasha noticed him doing it and grinned again. The two of them colored together, concentrating hard. At one point, Chuck began to hum. Within a moment, Sasha caught the melody and began to hum too. Then another of the kids did, then another. Soon the room was humming. Even Bobby. Humming.

Sarah felt something in her chest, deep and warm and liquid, respond to the humming. Her heart was humming. Half-panicked, she got up and walked out of the room. She stood in the hallway for a moment, trying to take a deep breath. The door opened and the TA smiled at her.

"That Mr. Chuck, huh?" Her voice was husky, and she used her hand to fan herself. Sarah liked Jerri, but at the moment she wanted to send her back to campus. A branch campus. Somewhere far away. Sarah took a moment before she responded.

"Something I ate this morning...I guess." Her voice trembled.

"Sure," Jerri said with a barely detectable smirk. "Or something you wish you'd eaten this morning…" she added just loudly enough for Sarah to make it out. She ignored the remark. To acknowledge it would be to think about it, and to think about it would be to kickstart her imagination. It had been busy all weekend without this added stimulus.

They went back inside to a room still filled with humming. "Okay, kids, Jerri is going to take you to the cafeteria." The kids began to put up their art supplies. Chuck helped Sasha put the crayons back in the box. When they finished, Sasha held up the finished frog. "Here, Mr. Chuck, you can have him."

"Why, thank you, Sasha. It's really nice of you. I will hang him right next to my desk at work, so he can keep his eyes on me all the time…" Sarah covered a grin again.

The kids lined up, knowing the drill. Jerri gave Sarah another smirk, then she led the little ones out of the room and into the hall. When they were gone, Sarah walked to her desk and grabbed the bag. She opened it and took a sniff.

"Mmmm…those smell wonderful."

"A friend of mine has a taco truck. Best tacos in town, really. She knows what she is doing."

The same feeling Sarah had in the hallway with Jerri showed up again. "She?"

"Her name is Alex. She's...um...sort of dating my best friend, Morgan Grimes, but he doesn't know it yet."

ooOoo

Chuck noticed that Sarah's smile in response to his Alex comment was colored by a blush. He wasn't sure why that was, but he knew he couldn't ask.

"That's...interesting. So how would you feel about eating on the beach?" she asked.

Chuck wasn't sure what she was asking. He'd love to go to the beach, but first, that was not a client/detective thing to do, and, second, the nearest beach would take them longer to reach than Sarah would have for lunch. And that was if the Crown Vic even started. Chuck wasn't sure he could imagine Sarah in the Crown Vic. Not after seeing her in her Porsche.

"Um, that sounds great, but..."

Sarah grinned at him and walked to the other side of the classroom. Chuck had been so caught up in Sarah's reading, and then in coloring with Sasha, that he really hadn't noticed the Chinese screen standing there. Sarah moved it. Behind it was a small sandbox full of sand. On the walls were childish drawings on poster paper. Water, waves, sharks and fish. Beach scene. Palm trees. A huge yellow sun with a smiley face smack-dab in the middle.

"The kids made it. They wanted to go to the beach." Sarah grabbed a towel from a small table next to the sandbox and spread it on the sand. She gestured for Chuck to sit. He folded himself up again, but not as severely as he had to sit beside Sasha. Sarah opened the bag and pulled out a taco, handing it to Chuck and another for herself. They sat silently for a minute as they opened the wrappers. Sarah bit into hers first.

"Oh, God, Chuck, that _is_ good."

"Told you so," he replied. He took a bite of his. "Mmmm…"

Sarah chewed for a minute. She swallowed. "So, Chuck, what did you make of Sasha?"

"She's a cute one, and smart. I hate to think she's having bad dreams. I can see why you are worried. She doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with her."

"I know. I can't figure it out. Maybe you can, though."

Chuck shrugged but did not suggest hopelessness. "We'll see. I will do my best for you, Miss Sarah."

"Thank you, Mr, Chuck." Sarah bumped his shoulder with hers. She nodded toward the sun on the wall. "It's beautiful here, isn't it, Chuck?"

He snuck a look at her and held it as he answered. "The most beautiful place I've ever been."

They finished their tacos and their consultation and Chuck left the classroom. The Crown Vic started. He took that as a hopeful sign.

ooOoo

Sarah shook the sand out of the towel gently, careful to keep it above the sandbox. She did not know if that had gone according to plan. Yes, other than the shoulder bump, she hadn't touched him. Other than the smile that escaped her when he first showed up, she kept her expressions within bounds. Maybe the shoulder bump was on the line...

But that feeling when he was coloring with Sasha! That feeling when her class was humming along with him. When she was, inside. His clever little kindness to Sasha about her frog's eyes. She had never felt anything like that, so strong, so deep, so complete. There was desire in it, real, burning desire, but there were so many other things, many of them future-tensed. Her normal worries about the motives and intentions of the guys who were interested in her had not shown themselves yet. She...trusted...Chuck. That was new.

She made herself shift gears. The kids would be back soon and she would have to get them ready to leave, always a hectic time of day. Backpacks and missing shoes and pulled hair...

She shifted gears but the longing in her chest remained. She really wanted to kiss Chuck. Kiss, kiss, kiss...

ooOoo

Chuck spent the early afternoon on the computer in his tiny office. His one window let in the afternoon sun and it shone on the only thing in the office he really cared about, a small cactus in a blue pot. He poured a little water into the pot and turned the cactus a little clockwise. He really wanted a dog, but his living arrangements and the bizarre hours he kept when on cases made that impossible. The cactus would have to do. He got a piece of tape from the dispenser on his desk and carefully taped Sasha's frog on the wall above the cactus. Its angry eyes glared at Chuck and he laughed out loud. He really liked that picture.

He intended to dig deep into Sasha's background. Sasha Monroe. Daughter of Matthew and Virginia Monroe. But he came up with almost nothing. And for a hacker of his skill, that meant something. As far as he could tell, the entire family simply popped into existence less than two years ago. They had no previous history. It was like they had lived off the grid, then moved back onto it. Chuck made a few notes in his notebook, then sat, idly chewing on the end of the green golf pencil, trying to work out the non-pattern. After a few unproductive minutes, he got up and headed out of the office. Before he did, he got his gun and shoulder holster out of the file cabinet. He left them behind, of course, when he visited the school.

He sailed the Crown Vic toward the Monroe's address. It was in a very nice section of town, and their house turned out to be one of the nicer houses in a nice neighborhood. Chuck had a vision as he shut down the Crown Vic and waited for her shudder to end: a vision of himself and Sarah, a kid and a dog, in a nice neighborhood. Funny, he thought Jill was the one, for a while, but when he did, he never had a vision of a future life with her at all, much less one of such bell-like clarity, one that felt so _right._ He thought he heard bells in his head.

He stopped himself. _I am wrong to think about it. She is my client. Sandbox or not. Is it really possible to fall in love at first sight? I have no idea._

 _Some detective I am, I can't tail my own heart._

Chuck got out and walked along the sidewalk. He passed the Monroe house without changing speed and without obviously studying it. Up close, it was still nice. He noticed nothing odd - except the front door. Heavy, bolted. The lock looked impressive. Then he noticed that the home security system, although made to look like the average pay-by-the-month system, was far more high-tech, extraordinarily pricey, high-end stuff. Chuck knew electronics. He liked to hang out at the 'spy store' near the Buy More. He just never had any money for work gear he couldn't buy at the army/navy surplus. He walked to the end of the block, looked around like he was lost, pretended to notice the street sign and then to shake his head at himself. He walked back to the car. He hadn't been able to tell, but he thought it likely the house windows were made of special glass.

Sasha lived in a fortress. A house prepared to resist invasion or to ride out a siege. Sarah's instincts were true. There was more to this story.

Chuck got in the car. It started. He patted the steering wheel and pointed his ship downtown.

ooOoo

Chuck walked into the police station steeling himself for the onslaught. The policemen there treated him as a bit of a joke. They liked to call him…

"Dr. Watson! How are you?" It was Barney, a massive beat cop who looked a little like the purple dinosaur, minus the purple. He grinned with mischief under his large, flat-ended nose. "How is the world's best detective sidekick? Ever find a detective to...sidekick?"

Chuck ignored the final question. "Fine, Barney. How's my favorite dinosaur sensation?" Chuck threw in a few hummed bars of the Barney theme song for good measure.

Barney scowled. "That ain't funny, kid."

Chuck smirked and walked on. He found Casey at his desk, talking to his sometime partner, Rhonda Sumner. Rhonda was a blunt, fast-talking woman, African-American, with sharp eyes and a kind smile. She was not just Casey's sometimes partner, she was his full-time girlfriend. They kept the relationship secret, although Chuck suspected everyone knew but that everyone pretended that they didn't. Chuck was very fond of Rhonda. He suspected that he and Morgan were only still alive because she whispered kindness into Casey's ear. Rhonda had been trying lately to get Casey and Alex to come to terms, but so far even she had not had much luck.

Rhonda looked up and saw him coming. "Dr. Watson, I presume." She said it with so much obvious affection Chuck let it slide. She grabbed Chuck and gave him a hug. "Be careful with him. He's in a mood."

Chuck whispered back. "So, normal?"

Rhonda shrugged. "Gotta go. Court appearance on a bust." She walked out and Chuck watched Casey watch her walk away. A softness crept into Casey's eyes that vanished when he turned to Chuck.

"What's up, Bartowski. You twice in one day is about as welcome as a lilac bath bomb in my tub." Casey chuckled at himself, and Chuck let him do it alone.

"Not much. Just a question. Imagine that there's a family in town. Obviously well-to-do. Small daughter. Just in school. Family doesn't seem to have existed for more than two years though. No internet records going back in time. Just family _ex nihilo_. What would you make of that?"

Casey tipped back in his desk chair. It made a sound a lot like the chair in Chuck's office when Casey was in it. Chuck thought Casey had tipped back so far the chair would topple, but, miraculously, it didn't. Chairs went the extra mile for the big detective.

"Lots of possibilities…" Casey began after a moment, "...but almost all of them require government involvement. That kind of erasure or creation requires deep electronic reach, official ties. I mean, it could be done by a gifted hacker," his eyes flicked to Chuck, "or organized crime…But it would not be mob style, really, and the hacker would have to have serious equipment and lots of cash, I'm guessing…" his eyes flicked to Chuck again, and Chuck nodded. "Whatever the explanation, something big would have to be in the story, something to motivate effort on that scale. Doesn't sound like any casual con, for example."

"That's what I thought. Well, I'll let you get back to work. No need to bath bomb you."

Casey tipped his chair forward and wheeled it toward Chuck. "Say, kid, you asked this morning about…" he dropped his voice, "the work you were doing for me. I will tell you more when we are alone, but the thing is...I have reasons to be suspicious of Larkin. But, given his position, I can't easily do anything about them until I have proof. Rhonda just told me something that may turn into something...I know that's vague, but be ready, I may need more of your help."

"But you think I can't do this work, Casey." Chuck kept his voice a whisper too.

Casey gave Chuck a funny look. "I said you weren't cut out for it, kid. Didn't say you couldn't do it. I trust you. Gotta go. Talk more soon."

Casey strode away. Chuck stood there, feeling heartwarmed, until Jessup, another detective, walked by. "'Scuse me, Dr. Watson."

ooOoo

Chuck drove to the putt-putt course. He wanted to tell Morgan about Sarah. See if he could figure out how to cope with what he was feeling while remaining within professional bounds. More trips to the beach, sitting with her beneath a smiling sun - probably not a good idea. He blamed the smiling sunlight for his earlier vision. _Too much Crayola sunlight._

He was surprised to see Alex's truck out front. He had talked to her before he went to see Sarah, but she had been parked in her usual weekday spot, on the side of a gas station parking lot.

He noticed the side door of the small building was standing open. He got a strange feeling. He thought about his gun but left it in his shoulder holster. He could hear shouting.

He slipped through the door. There, on the floor, amid a spill of stubby pencils and scorecards, was Morgan. He was on his back. Alex was on top of him, yelling.

* * *

 **A/N2** This story's version of a cliffhanger.

Tune in next time. Larkin and Jill make speaking appearances. Sarah begins to wonder about her plan. Chapter 6, "Dodgeball."

I head out of the country for a while. Postings may continue apace or not. I am now finishing the final chapter of (Mis)Ed's _New Traditionalists_ story.


	6. Dodgeball

**A/N1** More story.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladder**

CHAPTER SIX

 _Dodgeball_

* * *

Still later, Monday, March 27

* * *

Chuck froze before the spectacle. _What the hell?_

"Never again, Morgan! Do you hear me! We are together and have been whether you knew it or not! Never again!" Alex thumped Morgan chest with her hands hard. She stood up and stormed past Chuck, out the door.

Chuck looked at Morgan for a second longer, long enough to see him sit up and start rubbing his chest, then Chuck turned and chased Alex. He caught up with her just as she was climbing into the rear of the taco truck. He followed her inside, moving too quickly, and he speared the low ceiling of the truck with his head, hard. He collapsed, actually seeing stars. It turned out to be less attractive than the description made it sound.

He heard Alex gasp and then he felt her hands on his shoulders.

"Chuck, Chuck?" Are you okay?"

He nodded and then regretted it. Star shaker. Alex left his side for a moment, then came back with ice chips (from her on-board machine) wrapped in a clean, white towel. She felt the top of his head.

"Bump already, no blood. You really torpedoed my ceiling. Lucky you didn't break your head open...As it is, you dented the ceiling."

"Sorry, Alex. I wasn't thinking." He took the towel and rested it on his head.

"Common condition around here today."

Chuck slowly opened his eyes. Alex was on her feet but kneeling down beside him. Her earlier anger seemed to have passed.

"What was _that_ all about?" Chuck tipped his head, gently, toward the golf course. Alex looked in that direction, but since the truck was shut up, she could not actually see anything.

Chuck noticed for the first time that she was dressed up. Heels. A nice black skirt (shorter than was comfortable for Chuck, with her kneeling beside him), a silky green blouse. Her hair, still red, was down, wavy. She looked nice. "You look pretty, Alex," Chuck offered in her silence.

She sighed. "Thanks, Chuck. I got dressed up to come to see... _doofus_. I thought if I caught him without customers, caught him while I looked like this, he would finally ask me out." At the moment, Alex's typical flamboyance was dimmed. Chuck felt for her.

"So what happened?"

"Sexy Underpants was here, that's what happened!" Alex's eyes heated up, her anger returning.

For a second, Chuck was at a loss, then he understood. "Oh, Carina Miller? She was here? During the day?" Chuck was immediately sorry he used Carina's name and that he asked that last question. Alex's eyes were now back in full blaze.

"Yes, that underwire whore was here, legs like sex stilts in a skirt made in a postage stamp factory…"

Chuck took a moment to try to process all the words of that description. "Did you just call her an 'underwire whore'?"

"What of it?"

"Nothing. I guess I had never thought those words in combination."

"So, she's in there - when I walk up. And I hear her cooing in that vapid voice of hers. She's telling Morgan that he should teach her to play _Chutes and Ladders_. Damn sex mannequin. I know whose chute she had in mind - and whose ladder." Alex actually gritted her teeth.

"Anyway, I was standing there, and she sashayed out, right past me. Even said 'Hi!'. I went in and tackled the dumbass." She looked down as she stood up, partly out of contrition, partly (Chuck realized) to make sure her heels were not damaged.

"I don't dress up much…I borrowed these shoes from a friend..." She was talking to herself as much as to Chuck when she said it. Chuck felt for her. She was as bad at this as Morgan. A perfect pair.

"Did you give Morg... _the dumbass_...a chance to explain?"

Alex shook her head. "No, I'm like my dad, I guess. I have no calm center. And I hate it when he is right. Dad, I mean. Coloring your hair for a guy! That's like a rejected scene in a Doris Day movie, too dumb for the 1950s. I'm an idiot."

There was a timid knock on the outside of the truck.

Alex's fury was back immediately. Chuck got up, quickly but carefully, staying bent over, and put himself between Alex and the knock.

"Hey, hey, Alex. You're ahead one tackle to none. Let me talk to him."

Alex huffed, shrugged, blew out her frustration. But she relented, and took the icy towel from him. Chuck stepped out of the truck. Morgan was standing on the curb, looking defeated and forlorn...and afraid, very afraid. He stared past Chuck into the truck.

"So, Morg. Carina stopped by?" Chuck asked a little loudly, hoping Alex could hear. He was playing a hunch.

Morgan turned his attention to Chuck and his face darkened. "Yeah, she stopped by out of the blue. She wanted to know if she could rent the place for a work party, a Sexy Underpants, Etc. party. We worked out the details and then she told me her new boyfriend, you know, alpha-male poster boy, - he has a young son and she was trying to figure out how to break the ice with him. I suggested that she play some games with him…"

"Like _Chutes and Ladders_?"

"Yeah, dude...I still love that game. And then she left. And then Alex tried to kill me."

Chuck heard movement inside the truck. "So Carina was here on business?"

"Yeah, and I got her to agree to have Alex provide the food…"

Chuck heard footsteps behind him. He stepped aside. He saw Morgan's eyes widen and then Morgan assumed _The Morgan_ , a defensive posture he had perfected in junior high. Chuck stepped back a bit further and turned so that he could see both Morgan and Alex. She had just stepped out of the truck and onto the spot Chuck had occupied.

"So, Morgan," Alex began, "you know you are a dumbass, right."

Morgan nodded his agreement.

"And you know I've been...keeping a taco warm for you for a while now."

Morgan looked confused for a moment, then nodded, cautiously. "And that _underwear model_ …" Alex glanced at Chuck, "you aren't playing _Chutes and Ladders_ with her?"

Morgan shook his head so hard Chuck worried he might concuss himself.

"Morgan," Alex said after a moment of silence, "do you like my red hair?"

"Um...look, Alex, I like it, but not because it is red, but because it is yours."

Alex went ahead two tackles to none.

Chuck gave up after a few minutes and left them intertwined on the sidewalk.

Casey was going to erupt. Chuck looked forward to sharing.

ooOoo

It was getting late in the afternoon. Sarah was at home, replaying Chuck's visit to her class and getting progressively more...antsy. Her plan was working in its way. But it was frustrating her too. She wanted to spend time with Chuck, but it wasn't obvious how to do that as his client. There were only so many...consultations she could manage.

She could call him, though, and see how things were going. Ask for an update. She grabbed her phone. She made herself take a few deep breaths before she called.

"Hey, Sarah!" The sound of Chuck's voice undid whatever centering her deep breaths had done. She was nervous all over. _Oh, my, I have it so bad. And I haven't even kissed him yet._

When she did not respond, Chuck sounded worried: "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yes, yes. Sorry. Distracted for a minute. Hi, Chuck. I wanted to thank you for the visit today. The...kids really, really like you. I mean a lot. I...enjoyed the tacos."

Chuck laughed. Sarah wasn't sure quite why. "What is it, Chuck?"

"I was just thinking about my friend Alex, the one I got our tacos from."

Sarah felt a stab of annoyance. Alex again. "What about her?"

"Remember I said that she was dating my friend - Morgan - but that he didn't know it?"

Sarah flushed, as she had earlier in the day. This was all a little too close to home. "Yes, I remember. Um… a strange situation."

"You're not kidding. But I saw him find out they were dating today." Chuck went on and related the story.

Sarah laughed. "So, you left them on the sidewalk, a dirty concrete version of Burt and Deborah?"

Then Chuck laughed. "Well, Alex certainly has plans to take the Morg from here to eternity. She may kill him in the process."

"So, no Bogart voice when you answered?" Sarah sounded a little disappointed.

ooOoo

"No, I knew it was you...sweetheart." He slipped into Bogart for the last word. His heart jumped as he did because he knew that despite imitating Bogart, he was telling the truth. _Sweetheart._

ooOoo

 _Did he just call me 'Sweetheart', or is he just playing?_ Sarah's heart jumped despite her uncertainty.

She let herself go and slipped into her Bacall voice, breathing into the phone. "Oh, you take yourself to know me, do you? And what do you know?"

ooOoo

Chuck was glad he was sitting in the parked Crown Vic. When she used that voice, he needed to be neither standing nor driving. Parts of him straightened but he could not drive straight. He thought about answering her with the horseracing bit, the racetrack banter, from _The Big Sleep_ but that was, well, racy. If he could barely stand to hear her do the voice, how could he stand to hear her say those words to him in it?

Bogart voice: "I know you're a beautiful woman, a woman I'd like to know better." Chuck could tell her the truth behind the screen of this voice.

Bacall voice: "I'd like you to get to know me better, and know me, and know me…"

 _Oh, Lord. I am out of the contest. How can she do that voice so flawlessly? If she ever says that whistle line from_ To Have and Have Not _, I will need a change of clothes._

Bogart voice: "I'd like that, knowing you, again and again, sweetheart. Better each time."

Bacall voice: "I'm sure it would be. Better and better. You know, _consummate_ knowledge."

Chuck had to stop this. It was making him crazy. He dropped back into his own voice.

"How do you do that? I mean, people recognize my Bogart, but mainly because of the lines. But you, that Vivian Rutledge voice...Were you some kind of actress in a former life, maybe an impersonator, or something?" Chuck laughed.

ooOoo

Sarah forced herself to laugh but she felt exposed. Too close to the truth. She had forgotten how good she was at roles. She hadn't done that since she walked out on her dad, out of the con life. She could do almost any female voice, any type of voice, and could assume the right posture, comportment. But those days were behind her and she didn't want Chuck to know about them. She was ashamed of them. _Chuck may not be making money, but that's not because his instincts are bad. They are good, almost too good. I would fall for a PI._

"Say, Chuck, what do you say to a stakeout? We could go by Sasha's - and take a look, watch for a little while."

"Ah...okay. I was by there today. But I can tell you more about all that when we're there. Give me your address? I figure my Crown Vic will be less...visible...than your Porsche."

 _He's wondering about the car too. I guess I need a cover story. Damn. I will come up with something. I don't want to lie to him._

She told him the address.

ooOoo

He told her he'd be by around 7 pm. He wasn't sure a stakeout was a good idea in terms of the case, but there was no chance he was passing up the chance to spend time with Sarah. Although he still couldn't imagine her in the Crown Vic. " _She's got a nice, big backseat if you know what I mean…" Casey, talking about the Crown Vic, when Chuck bought her._ Chuck tried his best to keep his mind in the front seat. But now the back seat would be on his mind during the stakeout. _Thanks, Casey._

ooOoo

Chuck docked the Crown Vic at Castle Burgers. He thought he would grab some food for the stakeout. He went inside, making the bell above the door ring, and sat down at the counter, on a black stool. The whole place was decorated like a medieval castle, or, rather, some bad set designer's vision of a medieval castle. It looked more like a comic dungeon. The burgers were good, though.

One of the underappreciated talents of a good detective was locating the best quick, cheap food, the under-ten-bucks sort of meals that probably lacked appropriate nutrients but that kept the boredom cases at bay. It also helped to be friends with Morgan who was like a dowsing rod for good, cheap eats.

The usual waitress came out of the kitchen. A busty blonde with a painted-on face. She had on a leather apron. Like the restaurant itself, she did not look her part: _servant_. In fact, the apron made her look disquietingly like an S&M mistress, a Dominatrix, not a servant; Chuck was surprised that she had a pen in her hand, and not a riding crop. He had that reaction every time. And like every time before, he blushed when she asked him for his order. He liked her but he always had trouble meeting her gaze. He looked at the menu chalked on the wall instead, although he had it memorized.

"Uh, hey, Xena ( _that really is her name, focus, Chuck_ ), my usual, but times two. To go, please." Xena raised one of her penciled black eyebrows at the variation. She normally knew what Chuck liked.

"Times two? You aren't back with that cardboard cutout, are you? What was her name? _Pill?_ " The bell of the door tinkled.

"You know very well it is…"

Xena looked up. "Well, speak of the…Jill."

Chuck heard a voice behind him, one he was not eager to hear. "Hey, Xena." _Jill._

Chuck turned on his stool and got a _times two_ he did not order. It was Jill. And Bryce. _Shit, shit._ He heard Xena retreat to the kitchen.

Jill made a show of taking Bryce's hand before she spoke. "Nice to know I'm on everyone's mind."

At that moment, it puzzled Chuck what he had ever been doing with Jill. She looked natural, at home, beside Bryce, beside his Hollywood sign smile and blue eyes.

"Hey, Bartowski," Bryce said with forced friendliness, "how're cases?"

Bryce was always uncomfortable around Chuck and Chuck returned the disfavor. Back in college, Bryce had overseen a frat cheating scheme, one that Chuck knew nothing about, and when suspicion fell on Bryce, he had pointed the finger at Chuck. Chuck was innocent, and eventually, the Disciplinary Committee judged that he was, but the taint of it stuck to Chuck gallingly, and Bryce never owned up to what he had done, either in orchestrating the cheating scheme or in deliberately turning suspicion to Chuck. The irony that Bryce now held the position of respect that he did and Chuck the position of...disrespect...he did was never lost on Chuck. But he had never told anyone the story. He wasn't sure why. But it was probably among the reasons he had agreed to help Casey. Finding Bryce suspicious was not as odd as Casey thought it was.

"Fine, fine. Eating. Can't ask for much more." His tone made it obvious he was not going to chat.

"Jill tells me the burgers here are good, but I have to say, the decor - really convincing, huh? I feel like I've stepped back in time."

Chuck suppressed an ungenerous sneer. Not a characteristic expression but one Bryce could elicit.

Bryce had a hard time with appearance and reality. Chuck knew that from way back. Bryce believed his own appearance and ignored his own reality. "Huh," Chuck finally added, "guess so."

 _Who am I to talk about appearance and reality? I'm playing at being a detective when it is not the life I want. I have a client who I am on fire for but I am not going to admit it._

Xena cleared her throat. "Here you go, Chuck. The usual, times two."

Jill responded: "Times two? Are you seeing someone, Chuck?" Jill managed to get just the right-sized helping of disbelief into her voice, a mocking note.

Chuck thought of those bad days in high school when his foot speed kept him around in games of dodgeball, but how those game always ended with him the last one on his team, facing two or three of the heavyweights from the football team. How they would take a run at him and hurl the ball as hard as they could, making sure that if he happened to catch it, and put them out, it would burn, burn badly. Jill took a run at him and hurled the ball…

"I've got a date, yeah. A teacher. Sarah. That's her name." _Shit. Shit. Sarah's not my date. She's my client. This lie is going to get me in trouble._ He caught the ball. Jill was out. But it burned.

* * *

 **A/N2** Next time, stakeout! Chapter 7, "Spin the Bottle".

Drop me a line.

About to board a plane. Not sure if I will write in Spain or not.


	7. Spin the Bottle

**A/N1** Greetings from Barcelona. Unlucky me, jetlag. But, lucky you (?), that means a new chapter (freshly written in the Barcelona dark).

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER SEVEN

 _Spin the Bottle_

* * *

 _What do you wear to a stakeout? A stakeout date?_

Sarah was standing in her underwear ( _not particularly sexy underwear, mind you, no reason to put ideas into my head_ ) staring in indecision at the clothes in her closet.

She did not have a large wardrobe. Most of what she owned was meant for teaching kindergartners, with runny noses, dirty hands, sticky faces and...well...other things not good for good clothes.

She knew what she wanted to wear. A few weeks earlier, in an uncharacteristic splurge, Sarah bought a remarkable little black dress. Silk. It barely existed; she felt both fancy and bare when she wore it. She wouldn't have bought it, but it was ethereal, like it was made of quintessence, and it looked so great on her - _and it had been on sale_. She had gotten it home and let it hang where she could see ( _marvel at it_ ) it for a couple of days, let it hang outside the closet. She promised as she finally moved it into her closet that she would not wear it until a life-changing event occurred or promised to occur. She had no idea what it might be, but, still, she promised herself.

But the life-changing event had finally occurred. She'd met Chuck Bartowski.

She could deny it, play coy with herself, but she was too excited, too far gone, to be coy with herself. She wanted to put that dress on, with its amazing silk caressing her and clinging to her in exactly the right places, over ( _way over, God, is it short_ ) a pair of black high heels she loved - _and she wanted to see Chuck see her in that_. The thought of it made her get goosebumps and more, made her short of breath, made her think about how likely it would be that if she wore that and Chuck saw her in it, - how likely it would be that they would reverse course from the front door and retreat to her bedroom door, and the little black dress would come off her, slipping, sliding, caressing, clinging, not long after it had gone on.

 _Oh, yes, please. Please, Chuck…_

There was a knock at the door.

 _Oh, no, not yet, Chuck, not yet, not quite there…_

Sarah walked quickly but unsteadily into the living room and spoke loudly to the door. "Not decent yet, Chuck, give me a minute." She heard him chuckle through the door and through an 'Okay'.

She walked back into her bedroom. Steadied herself. Breathed. She shook herself all over, trying to make the goosebumps disappear. She reached into her closet and got a comfortable, long-sleeved navy blouse. She grabbed her favorite dark blue jeans. And then she noticed a pair of orangey converse low-tops in the corner of the closet. Forgotten but now happily remembered.

She put on the blouse and the jeans and then, smirking to herself, she slipped the tennis shoes on and tied them quickly. Putting her hands together, she covered the bottom half of her face, her thumbs on her jawline, and she exhaled slowly. Then she skipped to the door and opened it, not more than two or three minutes after she had asked Chuck to wait.

He looked at her in almost the way she imagined him looking at her in the black dress. That she could affect him like that, in those, her day-off clothes, made him seeing her in the little black dress at once less urgent - _and more intriguing_.

He gave her a slightly puzzled look and she realized her face was almost certainly still flushed. The hurry to dress did not allow it to fade. She saw him blush in response. The goosebumps returned. _Chuck!_

She grabbed her purse and stepped out of the apartment, locking it behind her. She did it all nonchalantly; she was no obliged to ask him to come in, of course, but the main thing was that the gooseflesh returned when he looked at her. If he came into the apartment, she worried they would not leave it until tomorrow morning.

ooOoo

Seeing Sarah, Chuck felt simultaneously blessed and cursed, the favorite of the gods and their plaything. He was going to sit, maybe for a few hours, in his car with the most beautiful woman he could imagine, and she was really going to be there, she was really real. But he was going to sit, maybe for a few hours, in his car with the most beautiful client he could imagine, and she was really going to be his client, really. _Life always has a kicker. Show the poor PI the substance of his hopes and tell him he is hoping in vain._

Chuck opened the passenger door for Sarah and she got in, thanking him, grinning at him. He whipped around the Crown Vic and got in himself. He turned the key. The starter whirred slow...but then picked up speed. The old girl ( _the classic girl_ ) started. At least he'd been spared that humiliation.

Sarah craned her head around, examining the vast interior of the Crown Vic, practically a small European country. "Wow, Chuck, you could live in here!"

"I've thought about it, especially on Ellie and Devon's date nights."

 _Oh, shit, did I just say that?_

"Devon is Ellie's husband, right? Devon Woodcomb? I admit I think of your sister as Ellie Bartowski. I haven't met Devon."

 _Cat's on the table, might as well go ahead._ "I do too. Until date nights. A man should not be in a position to hear his sister...being her husband's wife."

Chuck thought he heard an undertone of mischief in Sarah's next words, not disappointment or disbelief. "So you live with your sister?"

"Um...yeah...I do. I have for a while. Still trying to get the PI gig to pay all the bills. I rent from her, for what it's worth; I'm not just freeloading."

Sarah seemed serious all of a sudden. "I understand, Chuck. It's hard to get started, to get a life going, especially…"

She trailed off but he wondered where she had been headed.

"Well, yeah, it is," Chuck agreed. "And, I don't know if you know this, what Ellie's told you, but our parents, my Mom and Dad, they died in a plane crash. Ellie raised me. So I don't just live with my sister, I live at home. Rent a room at home."

ooOoo

Sarah was charmed. That frankness again, not pity-me but honest, self-revealing. Most of the men she had dated were only capable of honesty when it was part of a policy, part of a strategy for winning her or just bedding her. She'd played the angles herself for too long, been Jack Burton's sidekick for too long, not to see it. And honesty like that was a form of falsity. Many of the things they said to her, told her, were not lies, but they were said to create an effect, to coerce or influence her. And so in different sense, they were lies.

Not Chuck. He just told her the truth because it was the truth. He wasn't honest as a policy, he was honest as a state of being. _Why is he a PI?_

"But, yeah, back to your original point, the Crown Vic has lots of room."

"The backseat is _huge_..." Sarah added. Then she saw Chuck's blush and she felt her own.

 _Not what I meant. Well, not exactly what I meant. Well, okay, maybe I did mean that. But I didn't plan to mean it._

Chuck came to their rescue. "Well, it must seem extra big, given the interior of your Porsche."

 _Oh, no._

Chuck found a spot to anchor the Crown Vic down the street a distance from Sasha's house. He stopped the car and it gave a shake, like a washing machine with an unbalanced load, then it went silent. Sarah wondered if it had just died, _poor thing_.

ooOoo

Chuck couldn't quite get over Sarah Walker in the Crown Vic. Beauty in the Beast. It seemed surreal. And then the damn old car's... _classic girl's_ typical near-death rattle... _I am one impressive man. Sarah must be counting her lucky stars._

ooOoo

Sarah was trying to figure out how to avoid talking about her Porsche. She had just been thinking about Chuck's honesty, and if he pushed on this topic, she'd end up lying to him. She really, really did not want to do that. But she couldn't tell him the truth, even if, to her surprise, she had trailed off in the truth's direction a few moments before.

She did not need to make any more comments about Chuck's car. She needed another topic. Sarah looked out at the street, up toward the Monroe's house. The lights were on. It all looked suburban idyllic. Clean sidewalks, neatly trimmed hedges, houses all handsome and in good repair.

"So, Chuck," Sarah said, unclicking her seatbelt and settling in, "this is your detective's life, huh? Out here," Sarah gestured to the neighborhood expansively, "on these _mean streets_?"

Chuck laughed. "Guess so. Pretty scary."

As Chuck laughed, the door to Sasha's place opened up and she and her parents came outside. They had an inflatable beach ball. They got in a circle, as well as three people could, and began to keep the ball afloat among them, hitting it up into the air when it came near and in the direction of someone else. Sarah sat with Chuck, watching it. She only half-thought about what she was doing. She slid along the seat, closer to Chuck. They watched the family play in silence. Chuck reached into the backseat and grabbed the bag of Castle burgers. He gave Sarah hers and her fries. "Tacos, now burgers. You know the way to my heart, Chuck."

He got his burger and fries. They ate, watching the family play. Both thoughtful. Each a touch afraid to look at the other. Sarah's words about her heart hanging in the air and mixing with the sound of the family's laughter.

But then Chuck spoke, as he balled up the wrapper for his now-eaten burger. "Her dad, Sasha's dad. You notice how he keeps sweeping the perimeter? He's keeping watch."

Sarah had noticed something, but she had not been as quick to identify it as Chuck. _He does have good instincts._ Sasha's dad was not obvious about it at all. He took a look only when the game gave him a chance. But he was doing it. He seemed worried beneath his carefree appearance.

"Uh-oh."

Sarah felt Chuck's arm slip unexpectedly around her shoulder and the next thing she knew, he was kissing her. Kissing, kissing, kissing. She had been smoldering all day, all evening, and she burst into flame. She put her arms around Chuck and pulled him to her, allowing herself to fall back onto the seat, pulling his weight deliciously on top of her, giving her a chance to feel the breadth of his shoulders as her arms opened more to pull him down to her. She lost herself in the heat of it, her tongue slipping along his lips, a request for entry. He opened them and she plunged in. She could not keep herself from moaning low, from deep in her body. Kissing, kissing, kissing.

And then he was gone.

Or he sat up. Sarah was left partially supine on the front seat, her navy blouse askew, its hem up a bit, baring her stomach. She opened her eyes and saw Chuck looking out the front window of the car. Then he looked back at her and she saw the desire in his eyes, but desire mixed with...whatever it was her own desire was mixed with. Something complicated had just happened between them and neither was quite sure what or quite ready to face it.

Chuck looked out the front window again. "Cop car. Patrol, I guess. I thought we'd look less suspicious if we were necking."

Sarah pulled her blouse down and sat up. She was trying to relocate herself in her body. Her consciousness had settled deep in her abdomen and she was trying to summon it back to her head. Chuck looked at her, sideways a little, nervous. He was waiting for her to be angry.

She knew that was what she was supposed to do. A client did not allow this sort of behavior, right? But all she knew was that she wasn't finished with him. That the kissing had only started and had been too suddenly ended. What she wanted to do was pull him on top of her again, begin again.

"It's...um..okay. I understand. And did you really just say 'necking'?" Her voice sounded husky; it came out as almost a growl. But before Sarah could adjust herself further, Chuck grabbed her again and pulled her to him. He re-started what she wanted him to finish. They were necking again. _Okay, I will use the word._ She pulled him back on top of her. This time, she twisted herself more completely, so that she was flatter on the seat. He settled more completely on top of her, his lips searing hers, his chest against hers, her flesh covered in goosebumps.

"Is that you, Dr. Watson?"

 _Dr. Watson? What the hell?_

ooOoo

Chuck lost himself a second time in what was supposed to be a cover kiss.

He saw the patrol car. One kiss. He saw Barney get out and come up the sidewalk, dinosaur lumbering. Two kiss. No kiss like that kiss, except this kiss. Never before, not for Chuck. _Oh, my God, I don't just want her and like her, I..._

 _One kiss, two kiss. Me kiss, you kiss. Suess kiss. Suess kiss? -Get it together, Chuck._

His mind kept going blank. There was only Sarah, her candied lips and her warm breath, the feeling of her body, soft and hard, beneath him, welcoming his weight, opening to him.

"Is that you, Dr. Watson." _Shit._

Chuck sat up and turned into the not-purple face of Barney. "Yeah, Barney it's me."

Barney looked past Chuck at Sarah. He blinked in the twilight. Chuck saw him grab a small flashlight off his belt. He shined it into the car, into Sarah's face. She blinked in the bright light. Chuck saw how flushed she was, how swollen her lips were. She looked beautifully disheveled, well and truly kissed. He could feel the swell of his own lips.

 _Swelling. Lots of swelling._

Barney: "Are you okay, miss?"

"Yes, officer," Sarah said, her voice deep and husky, "I'm good."

Barney: "Where's the bottle?"

Chuck was annoyed. "Barney, we aren't drinking!"

"Never said you were. But if _you_ , Dr. Watson, are going to get a kiss from _her_ , then someone spun a bottle somewhere, and she lost when it stopped on you."

Chuck dropped his head. He heard Sarah giggle.

 _Shit._ _Two kiss, no kiss._

 _He thought of the purple dinosaur. Extinction events. Why is there never a killer asteroid around when you need one?_

* * *

 **A/N2** The characters are about where I want them. Time for the plot to unspool. More soon or soon-ish. May depend on insomnia. Chapter 8, "Boggle": more on Casey's suspicions of Bryce. Have Alex and Morgan reached an understanding and has she left the Redheaded League? What happens next in the Crown Vic?

Thoughts, reactions? Drop me a review or a PM.


	8. Boggle

**A/N1** Long day traipsing around Barcelona. But I found a few minutes for words. A quiet chapter, as the plot starts to take on a more determinate shape.

Thanks for the reviews and PMs. Love to hear your thoughts.

Don't own _Chuck_ \- but not nearly as puzzled by that as WillieGarvin.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER EIGHT

 _Boggle_

* * *

Chuck set the keel of the Crown Vic to the breakers and eased her into the nighttime traffic. The stakeout had veered around crazily. Chuck had kissed Sarah - cover kiss, pretending to be an amorous couple - and the kiss had transmogrified from cover to real, from pretend-amourous to full-on-amourous the second his lips had touched Sarah's. He had kissed her but there was no doubt: she had kissed him back, heartily, hungrily. Amazingly. His head was still abuzz and his body aflame. He could have driven by the glow he was giving off, shutting off the Vic's headlights altogether.

What did it mean? Was she not just his client? Was she ever his client? That was no client/employee kiss. That was. That was _what_? That was _epic_. Like a movie kiss, except Sarah was more beautiful than anyone he had seen on screen. That was a kiss that demanded its own soundtrack.

Thinking of music, and not knowing quite what to say to Sarah, Chuck turned on the radio. Just as he did, his favorite indie station began to play Gaslight Anthem. The song, a full, resigned, gentle sadness, played. Chuck knew they were both listening.

But boys will be boys and girls have those eyes  
That will cut you to ribbons sometimes.  
And all you can do is just wait by the moon  
And bleed if it's what she says you oughta do.

You remind Anna, if she asks why,  
That a thief stole my heart while she was making up her mind.  
I heard she lives in Brooklyn with the cool,  
Goes crazy over that New York scene on 7th Avenue.  
But I used to wait at the diner, a million nights without her,  
Praying she won't cancel again tonight.  
And the waiter served my coffee with a consolation sigh.  
You remind Anna, if she asks why.  
Tell her it's all right.

You know it's hard to tell you this.  
Oh, it's hard to tell you this.  
Here's looking at you, kid.

The song ended and, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Sarah smile ruefully. The last line seemed to echo around the car, bouncing their earlier Bogey and Bacall (with a dash of Bergman) back and forth between them.

Chuck sighed, a silent consolation. Maybe nothing would come of it, but he had kissed Sarah Walker. She had kissed him back.

No one could take that from him.

ooOoo

Sarah thought she heard Chuck sigh. She cleared her throat. The song had made her happy and sad all at once. She was still trying to get her pulse and her breathing under control, even though Barney's interruption had been a while ago.

"Chuck, you didn't notice, because you were talking to Barney, but when Sasha and her parents went back into the house, Virginia, Sasha's mom, scanned the perimeter too. She was more subtle than her husband, but I think the police car unnerved her a little. Just thought I should mention that…"

 _And not talk about that kiss. Those kisses. Those life-changing kisses._

She felt like it was time to end the client/employee ruse - _or whatever it is._ She had never felt _that_ , felt _like_ that kissing a man, felt not just her body respond ( _And did it ever!_ ) but her whole...life. She had tasted Chuck and found him sweet, too sweet to part with. She was his and he was hers. Her PI...her funny, charming land-yacht captain ( _I love his crazy car_ ), her Chuck. _Hers._ But now she had to tell him. That kiss might have been prompted at the moment by an attempt to cover the stakeout, but it had told Sarah everything, more even than the look he gave her when he picked her up. They were together. She was his. More than anything, she wanted him to know that, but telling him would mean admitting to the client/employee ruse - and it would mean sharing more of herself than she had ever shared with anyone. No one knew the story of her past except her father. What would Chuck think of her once he knew, knew it all?

 _Here's looking at you, kid._

Would Chuck look at her the same way after he knew what she had done, knew about the car, the apartment, her untouched but banked gray-water money?

 _I do a really good Ingrid Bergman. Maybe...No. Not a good idea. Not after those kisses._

Sarah let the worries go and she slid along the seat. She had slid away as they left the neighborhood, but only to put on her seatbelt. Now, she stretched the belt as far as it would go and moved almost against Chuck. She reached out and rested her hand on his thigh. She sighed. In hope, not consolation.

ooOoo

Chuck let the Vic drift into a parking space at Sarah's apartment complex. He shut off the car and they both waited for the rattle to end. Chuck was not sure what to make of Sarah sitting so close, her hand on his thigh but he made himself simply exist in the moment. The Crown Vic shuddered her last, and Sarah turned to Chuck, her face earnest in the moonlight.

"Chuck, my dad...was...a salesman. I worked with him...for him...for a while, when I was younger. One time, we...sold cars. I drove a Porsche as part of the sale. I loved it. Later, I came into...some money...and that car was my fondest dream. So, I bought it. Not the most prudent decision, I guess…But I don't want you to get the wrong idea...I didn't come from money, I don't have a trust fund; I'm not slumming it as a kindergarten teacher as some rich kid's suburban Peace Corps gig. I'm just a girl...from a mixed-up family...who is still mixed-up herself."

Sarah stopped. Chuck could tell that what she had just said had been hard for her to say, costly in some personal way. He couldn't claim to fully understand it, but he knew she was _giving_ him something.

He looked into her face. Her gaze was as open as it had ever been. His eyes flicked down to her lips, involuntarily, and he saw her lick her lips, also involuntarily.

He did not lean in. Instead, he reached out and ghosted the backs of his curled fingers against her warm cheek.

"Sorry for kissing you like that."

" _Like that_? That was not kissing for which you should ever apologize."

Chuck grinned and looked away, embarrassed. "Um...thanks...but I didn't mean _how_ , exactly, I meant _when_ and _why_. Cover, you know. The surprise of it."

She gave him an enigmatic smile. "Well, I can now say I have been caught necking in a parked car. Another item off my bucket list. Although that was not the verb I wrote down."

ooOoo

She giggled again. She had been doing that since she met him but only now noticed it. A musical sound from herself she almost did not recognize, that she had thought was reserved for her students, her kids. Evidently not.

ooOoo

Chuck laughed in response. "I am a full-service PI, I will have you know. Dastardly criminals captured, bucket list entries marked off…"

"'Dastardly'?" Sarah shook her head in amusement. "I've got a sort of...long list, Chuck. It may take you a while, if you are willing to...um...change the terms of our arrangement."

Chuck just nodded. Then Sarah leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the lips. Then, grinning: "Here's looking at you, kid."

She got out of the car before Chuck could move. She waved to him and gestured for him to stay in the car. A moment later, she was gone, inside her apartment.

 _Boggled_. Chuck was absolutely sure he did not know what had just happened, what any of the evening meant.

 _Boggled._ Still, he felt as good about the world, as alive in it, as he could ever remember feeling. He started the Crown Vic - she started right up, like she was feeling good too, her starter whirring madly like Chuck's heart - and he drove toward home, singing for himself the words to _Here's Looking at You, Kid_.

And all you can do is just wait by the moon  
And bleed if it's what she says you oughta do.

ooOoo

Sarah got inside and closed her door. She leaned back against it, panting. It had taken all her willpower not to ask Chuck inside. To start work on her bucket list. She put her fist to her face, thumb-side toward her, and bit her index finger near the knuckle. She was not sure how she would get to sleep.

 _I am absolutely crazy about him._

 _Boggled._

* * *

Tuesday, March 28

* * *

Chuck put a little water in his cactus. He straightened his taped-up, red-eyed frog. He was pondering Sasha and her parents, the oddity her parents' behavior. Something was up. Witness Protection, something of that sort, seemed to be involved. But there was still something about the whole situation that felt off. It might have been the rubbery bacon he ate next door with his runny scrambled eggs, though. Chuck's tiny office was in a throw-away space in the corner of an out-of-date, Dollar Store-style strip mall. It was in between a Dollar Store and a greasy spoon that actually succeeded in greasing all its utensils, _The Go Fork Yourself Cafe_.

The Cafe's owner, a whip-skinny man named Billy Powell, was convinced he'd come up with a great idea: a self-serve diner. At breakfast, there was a long bar of warming trays and moist heaps of scrambled eggs and chewy rashers of bacon, dry biscuits, etc. At lunch, the food changed out to burgers, dogs and buns, packets of condiments, fries under a heat lamp. Chuck had tried to tell Billy that every middle-of-the-road hotel in town served the same breakfast, and every fast-food joint a better lunch, but Billy refused to listen. The amazing thing is that the place had caught on, and now had a set of regulars large enough to keep the doors open. Chuck worried that the regulars would be dying off of heart failure in large numbers any day, and he felt bad for Billy, so he ate there a couple of times a week, hoping that he wasn't killing off years of life expectancy.

 _So, yeah, maybe things feel off because I_ Forked _myself. Or maybe something really is going on._

Chuck set up another deep dive into the Internet, trying various combinations of names near the Monroe's. The computer search was going to take time, so Chuck went to his file cabinet and took out a file marked, simply: _B and J._

He had no problem believing Jill had chosen Bryce over him. But he still had very little sense of why Casey would have asked him to tail Jill. Other than meeting Bryce, she did nothing suspicious on those evenings, although they did normally begin at FARMA. It was odd for a corporate lawyer like Jill to work Saturdays, but Chuck had no reason to think it couldn't happen. Casey's comments the other day had him wondering if there was some connection that led from FARMA, through Jill, and all the way to Larkin.

Chuck got out his notebook and his stubby golf pencil. He started brainstorming. The storming had only gotten started when Casey himself came through the door. He did not look happy. He walked right up to Chuck's desk and loomed over him, like a solid stone cliff. Chuck wondered, as he often did, how Casey made it as a detective. He had a cop's face all day long.

"Morning, Casey."

"Grimes."

"What about him?"

"Alex."

"What about her?"

"At her house this morning. Answered her phone when I called. _Grimes._ " Casey wrapped a massive fist in his other massive hand. Then he punched the second with the first. Chuck felt the power of that punch across the desk. He gulped for his little buddy. _But, hey, good for my little buddy. Hope that pre-performance anxiety did not carry over into the performance._

"I'm going to kill him. But since you are my friend and his friend - God only knows how that is possible, but there you have it - I wanted to pay you the courtesy of letting you know in advance of your friend's deceasement."

" _Deceasement_? Is that even a word, Casey?"

"Don't know, Bartowski. Don't care. Clear enough. Screw Webster's." Casey turned to leave.

"Whoa, whoa, there big fella! Your daughter is a grown woman. You hurt him, you hurt her, and things between you two are already precarious enough, aren't they?"

Casey's heavy shoulders bunched tight, held, held, then sagged. He turned back around.

" _He's_ going to hurt her."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because he doesn't understand how precious she is." Casey looked shocked to hear those words fall from his own mouth. Chuck had to will his jaw not to hang.

"But if you believe that, Casey, and I know you do, then you and Morg agree on the most important thing of all, because he believes that and I know he does."

Casey took a moment then sat down in the chair. As usual, it gave out a doleful call for help. Casey ignored it. Chuck watched the chair legs bend outward.

"So he really cares about her? Then why did he make her chase him, play hard to get, color her hair?"

"Not because he is some kind of player, Casey. Think about it. The Morg? A player? The little man who _Putt the Fun in the Hole_?"

Casey's face turned red and he slammed his fist into his hand again.

Chuck hurried on. "Ok, not the best slogan and not the right time to remind you of it, but I am thinking about its form, not its content. It's silly, Casey, but harmless and good-hearted. That's the Morg. Alex is smart, Casey. She's your daughter. What is Rhonda always telling you?"

Casey squirmed in the chair. The chair squealed in woody agony. "To trust my daughter."

"So, if she thinks Morg is worth it, why don't you trust her. I believe she's right. I know he's crazy about her."

"And the underwear model, the one from _Sexy Underpants, Etc_.?"

"Not a part of the picture, Casey."

Casey took a deep breath. "Well, okay, Bartowski...if you say so, but your ass is on the line here. He hurts her, I hurt him. Then I hurt you too. That clear? Hate to do it, but, you know..." Casey shrugged, his shoulders a rippling mountain range.

"Yeah, Casey, completely clear."

They sat and looked at each other awkwardly for a moment. Then Chuck shifted topics. "So, tell me about Bryce. What did Rhonda tell you? Why have I been tailing Jill?"

Casey looked around the office, as if someone else might be in there. As it was, between Casey, Chuck, and the cactus, there was hardly room to breathe. Even the red-eyed frog looked cramped on his lily pad.

"Look, Bartowski. This ain't your case. It's mine. Mine and Rhonda's. She okayed bringing you in to help, given the...sensitive...nature of the investigation, but we can't take you on board completely. It could end up blowing back on us - and on you too.

"But, see, FARMA was accused of dumping toxic waste - around here and in other places. They got off. This was a few years ago. Your legal skank got them off. She did it before you two were dating. But it was a big win for her, moved her up in her firm, with a bullet, so to speak. We think they are still dumping. That's not our investigation, though. We are worried about the recent whistleblower. Brian Feckman. Started making anonymous calls a few months ago, claiming that the dumping had never stopped and was increasing. The shit those places dump ain't nuclear, you know, but it's deadly. Still glow-in-the-dark shit. Anyway, the calls stopped.

"A while back, we found a body out in the desert. FARMA employee. Supposedly got lost and died out there, but it's suspicious. He was a regular hiker, knew the drill, according to friends. Larkin got himself involved in the case. Weird piece of micromanagement. Then he starts up with legal skank not long afterward. It all looks funny to me. Rhonda went up to the park and found a phone in the lost-and-found box. No one ID'd it, cause it was a burner. Don't know who turned it in or when. Turns out, it's the same number as the whistleblowing calls. We haven't logged that evidence yet. No one knows Rhonda found it. The guy at the park just handed her a box of broken GPS's and empty backpacks. He didn't know the phone was in there. She'll have to log it soon. We've been digging into the guy's life and past, hoping to get a better sense of what he knew and how he knew it. Get ahead of the game before anyone knows the phone was found. And, yeah, I know, the chain of evidence and all...but this is a bizarre situation."

Chuck nodded slowly, thinking. "Okay...But I have to say, other than the fact that Jill regularly visits FARMA on Saturdays - at least when she is in town - and usually before dinner with Bryce (though she does that on non-Saturdays too), there's nothing I've seen that suggests anything...nefarious."

Casey raised an eyebrow at 'nefarious', then apparently remembered his 'deceasement'. "No, I get that, kid. But I do wonder why she's working on Saturdays and just before dinners with Larkin. Any chance you can get into FARMA one Saturday and find out what she's doing in there on the weekend?"

Chuck chewed on his bottom lip. "Maybe. Let me see if I can come up with something this weekend."

Casey got up, and the chair made a sound like a sigh of relief. "Can't you get some man-sized furniture in here, Bartowski?"

Chuck gestured at the tiny office. Casey nodded in resigned annoyance. He left muttering under his breath about the world shrinking to favor Grimes.

ooOoo

Sarah finished for the day. She and Jerri were tidying up the classroom. Sarah was humming the Gaslight Anthem song, but not really aware of it.

Jerri, hearing Sarah humming, smiled. "So, Sarah, seen any more of Mr. Chuck?"

Sarah shook her head no but she could feel the heat of her blush. Jerri gave her a suggestive smile. "Your body seems to be divided in its opinion, Sarah. Which is it?"

Sarah could feel the weight of Chuck on her again, could taste his kisses. She had done her best to keep them out of her mind all day. Sasha's having another bad dream at nap time had kept thoughts of Chuck at arm's length for a while. But Sarah had caught herself daydreaming about that kiss, and daydreaming about talking to Chuck, telling him things she had never told anyone. She felt like it was time to tell him more than the generically true but specifically misleading story she told him about the Porsche, about her dad. She just needed to find the right time, the right place, the right context.

"I...He...Last night, he kissed me."

Jerri grinned, pleased. "And…"

"And...yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes. _Yes."_

"Does he know? Know it's _yes_?"

Sarah felt her excitement ebb. "No. No, he doesn't know. But he will, soon." _He will._

ooOoo

Sarah grabbed her things. She was planning to go to the gym after work. She wanted and did not want to run into Ellie Woodcomb there. Sarah had no idea what to tell her.

* * *

 **A/N2** More to come. Does Chuck's new computer search yield any information on the Monroes, on Sasha? Will Chuck get into FARMA to spy on Jill? What is Sarah going to tell Chuck, and when? Will Ellie be at the gym? All this next time, Chapter 9, "Truth or Dare?".


	9. Truth or Dare?

**A/N1** More story. Some backstory and some movement ahead.

If you follow (Mis)Ed, I am at work on the next chapter, but I expect it to be a few days, maybe a week, before it picks back up in earnest. Still in Barcelona and with limited free time.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER NINE

 _Truth or Dare?_

* * *

Later, Tuesday, March 28

* * *

Sarah wiped her face on her towel and prepared to dismount the elliptical. Her workout was over. No Ellie. She was relieved.

Truth be told, though, she was also disappointed. She had not been sure what she would tell Ellie if Ellie asked about Chuck. Sarah had not called Ellie or run into her since the initial date with Chuck. It occurred to Sarah that perhaps Ellie was avoiding her too, trying to give Sarah and Chuck some time, some room. Now that Sarah knew that Ellie had more or less raised Chuck, she thought that Ellie very likely was staying out of it, trying to avoid being an interfering 'mother'.

"Sarah!" Sarah removed her towel from her face and there stood Ellie; evidently, she had just arrived.

"Hey, Ellie! I was thinking about you." _Did I admit that? What happened to Daddy's girl? - Bartowskis, that's what._

"That's sweet, Sarah. You've been on my mind too. I was hoping you were...doing okay." Ellie smiled but seemed unsure what she wanted to say or how to say it. _Me too._

"I'm good, Ellie."

Sarah could see relief in Ellie's eyes, although Ellie kept her face in her original smile. "That's great. I've been really busy at the hospital for days, extra shifts, and haven't had a chance to run into you. I also haven't had a chance to talk to..."

"To Chuck?" Sarah offered, completing Ellie's thought.

"Yes," Ellie screwed her lips to the side of her face, "but I don't want you to think I only want to talk about him or about how…"

"The date went?" Sarah made a second offering. Ellie nodded.

"It's okay, Ellie. I understand if you are curious. And you really haven't talked to Chuck?"

Ellie shook her head. "No, but then again, I've hardly had time to kiss Devon. Chuck's been asleep or at work every time I've been at home and awake."

Ellie ran out of words for a moment and still seemed unsure.

"Well, I ended up hiring Chuck, Ellie." Sarah could hardly hold Ellie's gaze. She shuffled her feet.

"You hired my brother... as a private investigator?"

"Um...yes."

"On...your blind date?"

Sarah nodded, feeling overcome by Ellie's disbelief. Sarah knew it sounded bad...or something. Odd. Disappointing to Ellie, no doubt. Having dug the hole, Sarah was going to have to climb out of it.

"It's hard to explain. There's been a problem at school, not my problem, but a problem with one of my kids, and I thought Chuck could help me help her maybe. But I shouldn't say too much about it, I guess."

Ellie looked at Sarah for a moment as if she were an alien life form. "So, Chuck met you on a blind date and you hired him?" Ellie was clearly still a couple of steps behind, mired in confusion. Her smile was gone. "So, you didn't like Chuck? I was so sure you two would be perfect for each other, just a gut feeling, you know, but so sure...No wonder I haven't seen Chuck." Ellie said the last more to herself than to Sarah; she realized she had said it out loud, and she blushed. But Sarah could tell that some of her color was from annoyance, ire.

"No, no, Ellie. I liked Chuck fine."

" _Fine_?" Ellie pronounced the word in a tiny fit of exasperation.

"Wait, Ellie. I am not explaining this well. I wasn't hiring Chuck as opposed to being on a date with him. I hired him on the date. No, wait, that's right, but it sounded wrong. I think Chuck misunderstood. But we've been working together...on the case." Sarah gave up. She was spiraling.

"Working together...On the case…" Ellie was still coming to terms with what Sarah had told her. "So you liked Chuck _fine_? And you hired him?"

"Yes, but I didn't like him fine. I mean, I did; that's right, but it sounds wrong. I like Chuck, Ellie. I _like_ him." Sarah reached out and gripped Ellie's forearm, squeezing it, hoping the action might right her capsizing explanation.

Surprised, Ellie looked at Sarah's hand on her arm - but at last her gaze cleared. "Oh. Oh. You do?"

"Yes, Ellie, but he doesn't know it or, anyway, I haven't explained it to him."

Ellie narrowed her eyes and smiled a small smile. "I'm not sure explanations are your long suit, Sarah."

Sarah breathed out a long sigh. "I know. I know. And I owe your brother a big one."

"A big one," Ellie repeated, a glint of mischief in her eyes above her smile. "Maybe you just need to _squeeze_ him, Sarah."

Sarah felt herself relax. "Want to go sit, Ellie?" Sarah picked up her gym bag.

"Sure."

They walked out of the gym area and into the lobby. There was an atrium with tables and chairs. No one was seated there at the moment, so Sarah headed for one of the tables. She sat down, got a bottle of water from her gym bag. As she drank, Ellie, seated too, leaned toward her.

"Did you say you've been working on the case with Chuck?"

"Yes, just last night we were on a stakeout together."

"You mean like sitting in the car, watching someone or something?"

"Yes, exactly."

Ellie narrowed her eyes. "So you have been inside the Crown Vic, his barely roadworthy landlocked version of the Queen Elizabeth 2?"

Sarah bit her lip. _I like his car. Even more after last night._ "Yes, I have had the pleasure."

Ellie's eyes narrowed further. "The pleasure? Really? Because when he finally gives that beast up, there're plans to turn it into a rolling hotel in Dubai."

Sarah chuckled. "Oh, right, the fate of the QE2."

"The _pleasure_ , Sarah?" Ellie seemed lost in reflection, then she shut her eyes tight. "Tell me you _aren't_ talking about the back seat?"

Sarah continued to chuckle. "No, not talking about the back seat." _I'm talking about the front seat, but that's just between me and your brother._

"I'm still not sure I understand, Sarah. You like Chuck, I take it you really like him. But he's working for you and you are helping. You aren't dating."

"No, Ellie, that's not quite right. Chuck _believes_ we aren't dating. I _know_ we are." Sarah bit her lip. "Well, assuming a woman can know that of a man who doesn't know that of her. I am planning on telling him as soon as I find the right moment."

Ellie shook her head. Boggled. "So Chuck's _blind date_ has kept going, except he knows who he's dating, just not that he is dating her. Um...her...I mean _you_. Is that right?"

Sarah nodded. "I guess. I hadn't thought about it that way. But for him, it is a funny kind of blind dating..."

"Why are you doing this to him, Sarah?" Ellie's tone, thankfully, was simply curious, no longer angry. "I get that you have reasons, but his last girlfriend - Jill Roberts, _Satan claim her_ \- really messed with him at the end. Dumped him by text. With an emoji thrown in for good effect. I'd hate to have set him up for more heartbreak."

"We haven't talked about Jill," Sarah admitted. "But I promise, I am not going to break his heart, Ellie. There's a lot he and I need to talk about. We don't know a lot about each other's pasts, but he did tell me a little about your parents - and about what you did for him, raising him. You did good, Ellie. He's...well, you did...good. He's...sweet."

" _Sweet,_ Sarah?"

Sarah took a moment and sipped her water. She often had this problem. When she needed words, she couldn't find the ones she wanted. Alternatively, if she could, the ones she wanted only made sense if you knew her history - and no one knew her history. 'Sweet' was an important word for Sarah, an adjective with power, but she knew that to Ellie it must have sounded like she was damning Chuck with saccharine praise.

Sarah took another sip. She changed topics, although she saw that Ellie noticed. "Why is Chuck a PI, Ellie?"

The puzzled look Ellie had given Sarah for changing the topic without answering dissipated. Its place was filled with a look of frustration. Ellie turned her gaze out the atrium windows. "That's a long story. Short version: Chuck went to Stanford on a scholarship. He's like our dad was - gifted with machines, at programming. He was a straight 'A' student. Everything was great. But during his senior year, he was charged with masterminding a frat cheating scheme.

"Of course, he was innocent. You know him well enough to know that," when Sarah nodded, Ellie went on, "and he was eventually exonerated, although no one ever identified the real culprit. I'm sure Chuck knows who it was, but he never really talked about the whole awful business with me. The ordeal messed with him. Demoralized him. His grades slipped. He just went through the motions until he finished. I believe the ordeal reactivated old wounds, the loss of our parents in particular."

Ellie sat still for a moment, continuing to gaze out the window. "He came home and seemed like he'd given up on all his big plans. He specialized in AI work at Stanford. He was so good his name appeared (as an undergraduate) among the names on three or four important papers in the field. He was going to start a company. He had ideas about how to use AI to help kids who faced developmental challenges. But he just threw all that away, or, I don't know, forgot about it.

"One day, he met a guy at the Buy More near here. They were both there, shopping. The guy was a PI. He and Chuck hit it off. The guy ended up hiring Chuck. Just for amusement, Chuck had minored in political science at Stanford. It turned out that his degree, plus the hours he worked for his detective buddy, made him eligible for a license. While he was working, he got to know John Casey," Ellie paused and turned to Sarah, "do you know John?"

Sarah shook her head, listening carefully. "No, I don't."

"Well, he's a police detective. He is the last person on earth who you would ever pair with Chuck as a friend, but they became friends, fast friends, close friends, I think, although neither would admit it. Casey helped him out, helped him get his license and start an independent agency. Chuck's made enough to eat and pay rent, but he has a hard time making anyone pay him. I don't think he's ever seriously thought of it as his life's work. He's just been trying to help people…"

"Do you think it has anything to do with what happened at Stanford, the false charges against him?"

Ellie nodded. "Yeah, I do. Something. I'm sure of it. The explanation isn't straightforward though." Ellie halted and gave Sarah a serious look. "You two are a lot alike when it comes to explanations."

Sarah leaned in and changed back to the original topic, softening her voice. "And yes, Chuck is sweet, Ellie." Sarah grabbed Ellie's arm and squeezed it again. "And when I say 'sweet'...I mean _sweet._ " She let the final word dangle like a charm from a bracelet while she increased the pressure on Ellie's arm and wiggled noticeably in her chair, shifting position.

Ellie's eyes got big; her color rose. She burst into laughter. "Oh. Oh! _Sweet._ I get it now…although maybe I was better off not knowing. Is it that bad, Sarah?"

Sarah nodded vigorously and joined Ellie's laughter.

ooOoo

Chuck got tired of waiting for his computer search to produce a result. He had spent the last couple of hours staring at the bare opposite wall of his office, his head filled with Sarah. That made him restless. He kept shifting positions in his chair. He had a case of wiggles worse than any when he was a boy. The only productive thing he had managed to do was to record a message on a burner phone.

He got up, saluted Sasha's frog and grabbed his coat. He put it on as he went out the door.

Billy Powell was standing outside, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. It was between lunch and dinner hours and the cafe was nearly empty.

"Hey, Chuck, where you heading?" Billy sucked in on his cigarette, its end a pinprick of orange. Billy's question was conversation, not demand. He sucked on the cigarette again, his nicotined fingers holding it deftly.

Chuck stopped and stood beside him. Billy exhaled blue but aimed it carefully away from Chuck.

"Got a case."

"Good case or bad case?"

"Don't know yet? Two cases, actually." Chuck couldn't keep a note of pride out of his voice.

"Paying cases?"

Chuck shifted his feet. "Well, maybe."

"'Maybe' don't pay the piper, Chuck." Inhale orange. Exhale blue. "Are you a real detective, Chuck, or are you just playing at being a detective, because you think you can't be what you want to be?" Orange. Blue. Orange. Blue.

Chuck shifted his feet again. "Don't know, Billy."

"Ever think that maybe you never make anyone pay because you never really took this to be your job?" Billy dropped the butt of the cigarette onto the concrete and stepped on it, turning his foot as he did.

Chuck gave Billy a defensive glance. "It's my job."

"Whatever you say. Hope the cases go well." Billy walked back into the cafe. Chuck peered through the window at Billy's thin form as he walked away. _Jesus, everybody's a philosopher._

ooOoo

Chuck moored the Vic down the street from FARMA's headquarters. He got out and went to the back of the car. Opening the trunk, he marveled, as always, at its size. Shaking his head, he unzipped the bag he kept in the back and grabbed a clipboard with some random forms clipped to it, and an old, broken GPS. The GPS would turn on, light up, beep, but it no longer would get a signal from a satellite. Chuck could easily have fixed it, but his phone worked better for getting around. He kept the GPS for a moment like this. He dug around in the bag until he found a cap emblazoned with the official _LA Sanitation_ logo. Chuck had found the hat one day at a resale shop and thought it might come in handy. He pulled the cap down on his head, tucked the clipboard under his arm. He fished his stubby golf pencil out and clipped it to the clipboard. He turned on the GPS.

Chuck stood up straight and entered FARMA's glass and chrome lobby. He made a beeline for the massive reception desk. An attractive young woman in professional attire was seated there. There were two security guards in the lobby, each standing in a corner of it. The young woman glanced up at him and her gaze lingered on him, although Chuck did not pay any attention to it. He was busy thinking ahead.

"Hi, ma'am, I'm Joe. LA Sanitation. Extermination Division. I need to see if it will be okay for one of my men to enter the building and do some checks on Saturday. Do you work on Saturday?" Chuck was careful to make all of that a run-on sentence so that the woman could not interrupt.

When she said no, Chuck covered his relief by walking away, waving the GPS in the air. He did that for a moment or two, walking to and fro across the lobby, then he went back to the desk. He put the GPS down but made sure it beeped before he did. The young woman jumped at the sound. It echoed across the lobby. Chuck was careful to keep the screen facing away from her. All she could see was the reflection of its glow on the matte desktop.

"Yep, yep. Just as we worried. Initial indications aren't decisive, but they aren't good. We've been having trouble with an aggressive breed of the cockroach. When they move in...uh...large numbers, they give off traces of gas that this here gadget," he pointed with the bill of his cap while scribbling nonsense on the clipboard, "can detect. And I got a positive, although it might be a false positive. Of course, there really isn't anything positive about cockroaches."

The woman's face stretched in commingled disbelief and panic.

"Now, now, nothing for you to worry about, ma'am. I'm a professional. I know. They're all just down there, if they are, beneath your feet, under the floor. They don't like light, so they don't have any ambitions to march themselves up here and take over." Chuck made himself guffaw. "No, they'll stay where they are. I will send a man in on Saturday to run more tests and do the extermination if necessary. Can you just log the visit, let whoever works Saturday know my man's coming?"

The young woman was staring at the floor as she nodded her head. She seemed not to know where to put her feet.

"Now, please, don't tell anyone else about this. No need to panic anyone. And you are perfectly safe. There may not be any down there after all. So, my man's name is Charles Carmichael. He will be by Saturday afternoon."

The young woman wrote down the name in the Saturday section of her log book.

Chuck gave her the number of the burner phone in his office. "That's Charlie's number." Chuck turned off the GPS and touched the bill of his cap. "Thanks, ma'am. No need to worry." He turned and left, giving her no chance to respond.

ooOoo

It wasn't a perfect plan, but Chuck thought it'd worked. He had a name on the log book. He ought to be able to roam around in FARMA on Saturday, to try to see what Jill was up to. _I can do this job. But Billy's right. It's not my work. Someday…_

He was replacing the cap and clipboard in the trunk when his phone rang. _Sarah_. His heart, already pumping fast because of the deception in FARMA, sped up even more.

"Hey, Sarah."

Hey, Chuck. Are you free tonight?"

"Yes. Yeah. I need to stop by the office...but I will be free after that."

"How about coming to my place for dinner?"

"Well, that sounds nice, but I don't have any information on Sasha's case yet. I might later, but…"

"Chuck."

"Yes, Sarah?"

"We need to talk. So, information or not, will you come over? Say, 7 pm, like last night?"

Chuck's heart was jackhammering in his chest. He thought of Billy's question, "Good case or bad case?" He had it bad for this woman, that was sure. The worst case of his life. The best case of his life. _What does she want to talk about?_

"Okay, Sarah, see you then."

"Good. Come hungry. Bye." She ended the call.

Chuck shut the Vic's trunk. He got in and drove back to the office, half-exhilarated and half-terrified. He went in. He walked around his desk and looked at the computer screen. Still nothing. He took off his shoulder holster and put his gun in the file cabinet.

He checked the burner phone. No call. Good sign.

He made himself take several deep breaths, then he went back out to the car. He got inside and drove to a nearby store to buy a bottle of wine. When he came out and got back into the car, there was a dark SUV parked in the lot. He had a feeling that he had seen the SUV outside his office. He pulled out slowly, watching carefully in his rearview mirror, but the SUV did not move.

 _Just my imagination._

* * *

 **A/N2** I know I teased you a bit here. Tune in next time for Chapter 9, "Candy Land". Stuff happens.

Review?

Z


	10. Candy Land

**A/N1** More story.

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TEN

 _Candy Land_

* * *

Still Later, Tuesday, March 28

* * *

As far as Chuck could tell, the dark SUV had not left the parking lot of the store. But it was still in his head. It bugged him. _Maybe it's a hangover from my cockroach story?_ He kept checking his rearview mirror, but he saw no sign of it, no sign of a tail of any kind. But the bugged feeling was not going away, so Chuck made a couple of quick turns, turns without any turn signal and taken at the last possible moment. He did not see any car following at all. No car made any effort to stay with him.

 _Imagination._

He checked his watch, the old Yema Superman his dad had worn and that Chuck had kept meticulously serviced all these years. The lume on it still glowed, faintly now, although the dusk of early evening was not so dark that he needed it. He was going to be early to Sarah's. He made another quick, unannounced turn. Still, no one followed. He headed for the putt-putt course.

ooOoo

He arrived. Alex's truck was outside. That didn't surprise Chuck, given what he had seen and what Casey had told him. Chuck took Alex and Morgan to finally be together.

What did surprise Chuck was Casey's car. It was parked behind Alex's truck. As Chuck parked, he saw Rhonda standing on the side of the building, waving her arms. He could hear her yelling, but could not make out any words. She was facing away from him.

Chuck leaped from the car and sprinted toward Rhonda. As he got near, he could hear more voices. Alex, pleading. Morgan, yelping. Casey, grunting. Chuck stopped when he was alongside Rhonda.

"No, Casey. Don't! Don't hurt the tiny man!" Rhonda sounded genuinely frightened. Chuck looked out at the course. Alex was standing near the middle of it, on the tee of Hole 10. Chuck saw Morgan race past her, his arms windmilling in an ill-advised attempt to gain speed. Behind him lumbered Casey, neither gaining nor losing ground.

Pleading, yelping, grunting.

Chuck felt a hand on his arm, squeezing. He turned. Rhonda looked desperate. "Chuck, stop him. He'll break the tiny man!" Her dark eyes flashed with fear.

Chuck did not ask for an explanation. He jetted toward Alex, who had taken off behind her dad, and he caught her and passed her. She noticed him. "Chuck, save my man!"

Chuck leaped over the giant frog on the green of Hole 12, and then high-stepped through the tires on the green of Hole 14. He could hear Morgan clearly now.

"Look, Mr. Casey, I would never, ever disrespect your daughter…"

[Grunt]

"Really, she _asked_ me to…enthusiastically..."

[Savage grunt]

Chuck jumped over the narrow, downward funnel green of Hole 16, stumbled, caught himself, and, with a huge effort, hurdled the narrow hedge that stood on the tiny hill separating Hole 18 from the rest of the holes. He landed and saw Morgan, his back almost against the face of the giant Chesko head. Morgan's arms were extended in front of him, palms outward. In front of him, moving diagonally across the green, coiled and huge, was Casey, death in his walk.

As Chuck raced to the green, he noticed a yellow golf ball next to the sidewalk. Dropped by someone. Forgotten. He grabbed it without breaking stride. He was at a distance from Morgan but facing him, straight across the green. He had a clean shot. Although he had no time to aim, his throw was true. He whizzed the yellow golf ball between Morgan's legs and right into Chesko's open mouth. It was a one-in-a-million throw, one he would never have made had he had time for his normal fear of Chesko to register.

The golf ball set Chesko into motion and stopped Casey's stalking. Morgan saw the streak of yellow pass between his legs and he bent over, following the ball, looking back between his legs and into Chesko's (for Morgan) upside-down face.

Chesko's eyes rolled in his head and a horrible tinny laugh issued from his mouth. A familiar, crazed calliope tune began to play. Without warning, Chesko spit out the yellow ball and a huge gush of lukewarm water, soaking Morgan and Casey, and splashing Chuck just as he closed on Casey.

Alex was still pleading from the other side of the hedge but Morgan and Casey were both silent. Dripping. Morgan stood back up, and he gulped; Casey, shaking water from his hands, glared. Chuck stopped in between them.

"What the hell is going on?" Chuck shouted over the maniacal laughter and the crazed calliope. Alex came around the hedge. Rhonda had caught up with her.

ooOoo

Neither man answered. Alex got to Morgan and pushed him behind her. Rhonda grabbed Casey's thick arm and held onto it, trying to anchor him down.

"I think I can answer," Rhonda said, "but can someone stop the laughter and turn off _The Entrance of the_ _Gladiators_?"Morgan seemed to snap back into reality at that point, and he moved nearer Chesko's ear, keeping Alex in front of him as a human shield, and punched a hidden button. The laughter ended. The music stopped.

"Is that what that tune is called?" Chuck asked, his voice too loud for the sudden silence, and a bit distracted and disoriented now himself.

Rhonda shrugged. "Yeah, that's what it's called." Then she and Chuck and Alex began to laugh as Morgan and Casey continued to drip. "So, Casey and I were driving by and saw Alex's truck. We thought we'd stop and say hello. Well, the truck is shut up but the side door is open…"

"...And Dad found us," Alex continued, "well, with our pants down."

[Savage Grunt]

Morgan looked and saw that his fly was down. He pulled it up and it zipped noisily.

[Incredibly Savage Grunt]

"Dad!" Alex warned. "We weren't doing anything...yet. Listen, Dad, we're together, really together, serious, grown-up man-and-woman together. You are going to have to get used to that, shut down your gripes...and learn to goddamn knock." A certain frustration began to show on Alex's face.

"But you two...just started dating." Casey groused, chastised, finally reaccessing his English databank.

"Not exactly true, Dad. Morgan and I have been together for a while, he just didn't quite understand his side of the deal. He does now." Alex's frustrated tone melted into a dreamy one. "He _really_ does."

[Warning Grunt]

Alex: "Dad, stop!" And at the same, Rhonda, punching Casey's shoulder hard: "Down, boy!"

[Whimper]

"Okay, okay," Chuck said, checking his watch. He was now going to be late if he didn't hurry. "Alex and Morgan are grownups, Casey. And they are good people who care about each other," Chuck paused as he saw a warm look, a deep look, pass between Morgan and Alex. (Casey's whimper had been Morgan's cue to emerge from behind Alex.) "You have to trust them both. Trust them, Casey."

Rhonda broke in. "Case...c'mon. We've talked about this. You've been doing better…"

"I know! I know. Sorry. I was thinking taco, not Weinerlicious. I just wasn't prepared for the... _corpus delecti._ "

Rhonda laughed. "Well, when Case starts using legal Latin, it means we're past the rage." She mussed Casey's wet hair and kissed his cheek fondly. "Let's leave those two to their evening. Our shift is over. Why don't we find someplace to take our pants down - _without being caught_? Weinerlicious sounds pretty good to me now that I think about it."

Casey turned stop-light red. But not out of rage. Everyone laughed. Except for Casey. He was stop-light red, but he looked ready to go.

[Intrigued Amorous Grunt]

ooOoo

Chuck had wiped himself off with a towel Morgan gave him. He wasn't late, but he was cutting it close. He set course for Sarah's, chuckling good-naturedly to himself. If Casey and Morgan could survive each other for a while, he was almost sure they would end up liking each other. But Morgan had to manage to live that long. Amorous adventures in an unlocked taco truck were not a formula for longevity, any more than regular meals at _The Go Fork Yourself_. Pretty soon, the taco truck would have a health rating like the cafe's.

Chuck checked the rearview. Nothing. He then turned his thoughts ahead. To Sarah. Hope and a nagging worry kept fighting in his heart.

ooOoo

Sarah had the ratatouille in the oven. Other than a few egg dishes, omelets, she was not in command of many recipes.

She and her dad had lived for years out of cardboard and styrofoam, to-go orders taken away or delivered to a hotel room. Sarah ate at home now, mostly, but she lived on simple dishes, like her egg recipes, or one-pot meals, soups or stews - things quick that would keep, that she could eat for lunch at school.

The ratatouille was a dish she learned from a woman who had lived next to a hotel Sarah and her dad stayed at. The woman had noticed the girl, lonely and alone, sitting in the hotel parking lot or in the window of her room. She had invited Sarah to have lunch with her and Sarah went, desperate to have someone to interact with, and, frankly, hungry. She had no idea _when_ , really no idea _if_ , her dad would return.

The woman served the ratatouille and Sarah thought it was the best thing she had ever eaten. The woman had delighted in Sarah's relish and excitement, so she asked Sarah to stay and they cooked a second version of the ratatouille together. The woman had written down the recipe and given it to Sarah.

Sarah's dad came back late that night. The con had gone wrong and they quickly slipped out of town in the wee hours. Sarah read the recipe over and over by the street lights as they headed out to the interstate. She still had that piece of paper and she had consulted it as she cooked for Chuck, though she knew the recipe by heart.

Despite knowing it by heart, she had never been willing to cook it for fear that it would not match her memory of it. In the past week or so, she had come to realize that her memory was more of the company, of the attention and kindness than it was of the taste of the ratatouille. She thought that tonight, with Chuck, she could eat the ratatouille and have it match her memory. She was going to tell Chuck tonight - about them, that there was a _them_ (not just a client and employee), and about _her,_ who she really was, really had been.

Sarah left the kitchen and went to the bedroom. Absentmindedly knotting and unknotting the belt on her robe, she contemplated her little black dress. It was hanging outside the closet.

Coming back from the gym, she had taken the dress out of the closet before she got into the shower. Talking to Ellie had made it apparent that she had to talk to Chuck: Sarah had not exaggerated to Ellie: _it was that bad._ She needed drastically to change the terms of her arrangement with Chuck, to tell him about her plan and her reasons for abandoning it so early. The difficulties Sarah expected, the worries she had, Chuck had simply brushed aside by being Chuck. She had erected a wall against someone she now only wanted to welcome in. She had met no one like him. She felt no mistrust, no doubt; she was sure she was not being played. She knew Chuck was struggling with issues of his own - but she loved the fact that he kept his struggles close to his chest, that he refused to make anyone else pay for what he had lost.

The problem Sarah faced now was going too fast in the opposite direction. The black dress proved it. So did the matching set of lacy black underwear she was all-too-aware of in her drawer. She wanted to put it all on so that Chuck could take it all off of her. She could give herself to him, to his hands, lips, tongue...

But for his sake and hers, she needed not to rush into anything, regardless of how badly she wanted it and believed he wanted it. And since she did not want it to happen once, but to go on (and on), she wanted it to happen as it should, with the two of them mutually understanding what it meant for now and for the future.

Shaking her head in resignation, she slipped the black dress back into her closet and left the underwear in the drawer. She grabbed an electric blue dress - lovely but not daring - and some comfortable and attractive - but not quite seductive - underwear. She put on a pair of velvety blue flats, then checked her hair and makeup. She was ready. The timer went off on the ratatouille.

ooOoo

Chuck floated the Vic into Sarah's parking lot. He grabbed the bottle of wine - a red from Spain's Rioja region - and headed to the door. He wished he had had the time to change. He felt more rumpled than usual, especially after the unexpected Chesko shower at the end of the bizarre game of 3D Candy Land he'd played at the golf course. He took a minute to adjust his sports coat and check himself over.

He was not Columbo-rumpled or anything, but he was less presentable than any man about to have dinner with Sarah Walker should be.

He knocked on the door. Sarah opened it and knocked him out.

The blue dress she was wearing almost swept him from consciousness. Her smile, large and warm and...excited ( _definitely excited_ ) made his joints Silly Putty. Unable to move or to contact his own higher powers of thought, he just stood there.

Sarah finally reached out and grabbed his free hand and pulled him inside. She closed the door and then closed the distance between them. She put one hand on each side of his face and she kissed him briefly, but with feeling. Sarah giggled at his dazed look, gave him another quick kiss, then took the wine to her small table.

The apartment smelled wonderful. Chuck gathered himself and looked around as Sarah finished setting the table. The place was a reflection of Sarah. Simple, tasteful and elegant, but with touches of whimsy, playfulness. It was comfortable. A private hideaway.

Chuck noticed the full bookshelf and walked to it. There were books of all sorts, and lots of children's books, including some that surprised Chuck, like Dickens' _Captain Murderer_ , and others he expected, like a huge collection of Suess. He pulled one off the shelf, _I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew_. Sarah came back to the table from the kitchen. She had a cutting board and a loaf of crusty french bread.

"Do you like that one, Chuck?"

Chuck turned all the way around to face her. "Yeah, Ellie would read it to me. I loved the idea of Solla Sollew: 'where they never have troubles/ or at least very few.'"

Sarah laughed and nodded. She picked up the bread knife and she dazzled Chuck, although she seemed unaware. She sliced the bread with a ninja-like efficiency and speed. The knife blade was like a shaft of glinting light. When she finished, she glanced up at Chuck and became shy, self-conscious. Her gaze dropped. She took a moment before she raised her gaze again.

She smiled at Chuck when she did. "Remember what the narrator says? 'I learned there are troubles of more than one kind/Some come from ahead and some come from behind'?"

Chuck nodded, sobered a bit by the thought. "I do remember that."

Sarah's gaze had gotten complicated too, serious. She motioned for him to sit down in one of the two chairs. When he did, she went back into the kitchen and came out with the ratatouille. It was beautiful in the casserole dish, a meal of many colors. The wonderful smell intensified. Sarah put the casserole dish on a trivet. She sat down.

"You know, what that book says about troubles coming from ahead _and behind…_?"

"Yeah?"

Chuck's phone rang. "So sorry, Sarah." Chuck looked at it. Casey. Casey did not call Chuck. If he was calling, there was something going on. "Sorry, may I take this? It's my friend, John Casey." Sarah nodded.

"Hey, Casey, it's Chuck."

"Listen, Bartowski. Just got a call from Jessup. A guy came by the station today. Shiny little badge, big dull suit. Cheap mirrored sunglasses. _Spook_. CIA. Not nice. Asking about you, your license. Asking if anyone knows anything about your current cases. Showed a picture of a very attractive blond and asked about her too. I'm guessing this has something to do with the case you mentioned to me a while ago. You need to be careful. These folks don't play."

"Okay, Casey, I will."

"See you, Bartowski."

"Thanks, Casey."

ooOoo

Sarah could tell something was wrong. Chuck ended the call then got up and went to one of her windows. He looked out into the parking lot. He turned around, pale. "Is there a back way out of here?"

* * *

 **A/N2** Tune in next time for Chapter 11 "Hopscotch".

I doubt I will update this again until I have updated _(Mis)Ed_.

Back when I was finishing _Turned Tables_ , I said I was quitting. Obviously, I did not. But I am planning to stop writing fanfiction as soon as this story and (Mis)Ed wrap up. Consider these stories my swan song. No need to comment on that, just wanted folks to know. The finish of both is still a ways away, so I won't be gone any time soon.

Z


	11. Hopscotch

**A/N1** More story. Important chapter, if short. A bit serious, just a bit. Things speed up now. Let me know your thoughts.

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 _Hopscotch_

* * *

Sarah stayed in her chair. "What is it, Chuck?"

"Someone must have seen us on the stakeout. There was a CIA agent at the police station today, asking about me and my cases; he had a picture of you. A dark SUV was at my office today, later at the store when I bought the wine." Chuck peeked out of the window again. "Oh, no, here he comes! Casey said he was _not-nice_. He's wearing sunglasses at night..."

Sarah smiled. "Calm down, Chuck. Did you break any law? Did we?" Sarah sipped her wine. "Sit down, Chuck, let's eat while it is hot."

Chuck stood in place, his head rotating to the window, back to Sarah, back to the window, a rotating siren. "But, Sarah… _the C-I-A_ …" Chuck whispered hoarsely, urgently.

A knock on the door. Chuck now added the door to his rotation, door, window, Sarah. He seemed fixed to the floor. Sarah got up and answered the door.

In the doorway stood a man in a cheap suit, too large for him or he too small for it. He was, as Chuck said, wearing mirrored sunglasses. Sarah felt a shift come over her, unplanned an immediate. "Yes? Can I help you?"

ooOoo

Chuck felt frozen. He thought they should run but Sarah seemed unconcerned - or not much concerned. She got up and answered the door after the knock. As she swung the door open, Chuck watched her change. Her beautiful, expressive face hardened, ice on a deep mountain lake.

"Yes," she said, her voice flat, clipped, neither friendly nor unfriendly. "Can I help you?"

The man in the door looked like his suit had been designed by Hefty. The sunglasses he wore were too large too, mirrored, but clearly off a rack at a drug store. He tried to match Sarah's inexpressiveness. "I'm Perry. CIA." He held up a passport wallet for a second, and Chuck saw a small golden badge, then Perry snapped the wallet shut. "I'm looking for one Charles 'Chuck' Bartowski."

"Me too. One is all I need." Sarah replied, unhelpfully, staring at the suit, as if trying to find the man in it.

Perry blinked. He seemed not to know how to respond to that or to Sarah, so beautiful and so cold, Peary in Antartica. Finally, Perry stammered: "H-H-Huh?"

Sarah offered him nothing except a prolongation of her stare. Perry then noticed Chuck. He pivoted away from the baffling blue ice sculpture.

"Are you Chuck?"

Before Chuck could answer, Sarah had stepped to the side to interpose herself between Perry and Chuck, blocking Perry's view.

"Is there a reason why you are disturbing us, Agent Perry?" Sarah managed to edge her question with a threat - Chuck heard it and saw Perry feel it.

Perry stood straighter. "I am here on official business…"

"No, you're not. The CIA does not normally operate on US soil, so you need to make it clear why we owe you anything." The edge of the threat became sharper. Chuck involuntarily thought of Sarah and the bread knife.

Perry blinked again. Sarah continued to stare, unblinking, hyper-aware.

Perry folded. "Well, I am here to tell you that the Monroes are off-limits. I understand that you," Perry made himself look into Sarah's impassive stare, "are her teacher, but that gives you no standing to harass the family. And if you continue, I will see to it that you are reported, that your school learns what you have been up to." Perry looked away from Sarah, trying to face Chuck instead. "And you, PI, this is no case for you. The Monroes are the government's business, not yours."

Perry turned and left, clearly trying for a dramatic departure, but his shapeless suit swallowed the drama. He just looked like a government functionary, incapable of threat or drama, more IRS than CIA. He did not look back. He climbed up into the SUV and drove away. Chuck had moved to stand beside Sarah and watch Perry leave.

Chuck watched Sarah de-ice. In seconds, she was the soft, beautiful woman who looked at him shyly moments before.

"Okay," Chuck began, "how do you do that? The Vivian Rutledge voice, the...I don't know.. _.Ice Queen thing_ you just did? You _intimidated_ a CIA agent, Miss Walker…"

She gave him another shy look but she did not glance away. She kept her eyes on his, soft and inviting. She stood up in her blue velvet shoes and gave him a kiss, itself velvety and warm. He kissed her back, softly, then with more urgency. He felt her respond, felt a nearly silent hum from her on his lips. Then she pulled back.

"Let's eat, Chuck. We have to talk, now more than ever."

They sat back down. Sarah took Chuck's plate and put some of the ratatouille on it. She then plated some for herself. She gave them both a slice of bread. She handed Chuck the bottle of wine. He poured them both a glass.

Sarah picked up her glass. "Here's to you, Chuck Bartowski. And to us."

Chuck felt flush with pleasure, with delight. _Us?_

ooOoo

Sarah knew her performance at the door would raise questions, but she wasn't going to let that man, Perry, use three letters to ruin her, her dinner with Chuck. It was too important. Chuck was too important. Now, she just had to tell him. _Tell him_. The truth. Her father had made truth-telling hard, but Chuck made it seem so much easier.

She started with what had just happened. "About that change at the door, Chuck...Two things. One, that is not my first interaction with the CIA, and, two, I'm really good at...adaptation."

"Years ago, not long before I went to college, the CIA tried to...recruit...me. They might have done it if...certain things hadn't happened. But I turned them down. Turned down the Director of the CIA himself. I went on to college and got my teaching degree. Once you've turned down Langston Graham - he was the Director then - low-level functionaries like Perry are not particularly intimidating. And, the thing is, Chuck, my dad...taught me...how to do things like that. Change like that. The voices…"

"Was your dad in the theater? I know you told me something about him and cars, some kind of deal...Your Porsche."

Sarah closed her eyes. Here it was. The moment. Of truth.

"What I told you about my Porsche, how I got it. What I said was true - or true enough - but it was...misleading. My dad, Chuck, Jack Burton is his name, is a con man. Was a con man. Has pretty much always been a con man. And I grew up...helping…." Sarah let those words settle for a moment, but saw no change in Chuck. He still seemed patiently expectant.

"I was...a con too, Chuck. Unknowingly, at first, but I caught on pretty soon. But I did not stop even when I knew it was wrong. I have to tell you that. I did not stop…

"I mean I did stop...eventually. I walked away from the con game, in fact, just before I walked away from Langston Graham. But Graham was never a major part of my story. My dad is a major part. The major part…"

"But wait, Sarah, if your dad is Jack _Burton_ , how are you Sarah _Walker_?"

"I changed my name. Graham wanted me because he had, somehow, found out about my work with my dad, and he thought I would make a good agent. I decided I needed to distance myself from Dad and our work together, so I changed my name. I guess I also wanted the fresh start...a new me."

Chuck pondered that for a moment and took a bite from his plate. He closed his eyes. "Oh, Sarah, this is so good…"

Relief flooded through her. She had not realized how tense she had been. Perry had not affected her. But telling Chuck had been so hard, easier, but still so hard. She still had miles of explanation to go, but she had taken the first steps, and he was still sitting with her, relishing her ratatouille. He was not running for the hills.

And so the rest of it poured out of her, like molasses, though, not like water. They ate and drank and Sarah talked and Chuck listened. Cons, scams, briefcases full of money. The ratatouille recipe. Porsches. Banks.

She managed to get it all out by the time they finished. The ratatouille was gone; the wine bottle empty. Sarah had emptied herself too. She sat and waited for Chuck's reaction, her anxiety retaking her.

ooOoo

Chuck crossed his knife and fork on his plate and wiped his mouth on the napkin she had put on the table for him. His mind was spinning. It was a lot to take in - a lot that both failed to fit Sarah and fit her all too well.

"So, the chameleon thing, the voices, the changes of manner, all taught to you by your dad?"

She nodded. "Yeah, he saw my...talent early. Trained me. Taught me how to read people, so that I not only could become someone else but become the particular someone else they needed me to be." She looked away from him, pulling her lips into her mouth and biting them. Chuck realized then how deeply ashamed of her previous life she was. That was why the story about her Porsche, the one she had told him the other night, had felt like she was giving him something. She was. The conviction that he was the only one who she had told this story rose in him and gripped him. The meaning of it. He stood up. Her face, so unmoved in front of Perry, broke. He saw fear and disappointment start to form in her eyes. But he grabbed his chair and walked to her side of the table. He put it down and sat again. He saw her gaze shift, the fear and disappointment gone almost before they arrived.

"Sarah," he reached out and took her hand, "thanks. Thanks for telling me all that. I know it wasn't easy. And I want you to know that it all matters to me - and it all doesn't matter to me. I'm just glad you got out, that you were able to escape and to find another life, this life, your life. I've known since I first saw you that you were amazing, the most amazing woman I have ever met - _and I know Ellie Woodcomb, the bar is way, way high_ \- but I had no idea how amazing you really were, how much more than my...wildest dreams…"

This time, Chuck glanced away, and Sarah, despite the seriousness of the moment, giggled. "Just how...wild...are your dreams, Chuck?"

He didn't answer that, just hurried on. "I know we will have to talk more about all this, but right now I just want to make sure you know that it...doesn't change...how...I feel...about you. But I guess you know about that, about how I feel…"

ooOoo

Sarah squeezed Chuck's hand. Here was her other opportunity. "That's another thing, Chuck. How...you feel...that's how...I feel…You know, _me too_?" _Wow, Sarah, way to stumble across the finish line._

She saw hope in Chuck's eyes. And a glint of mischief. "So, we aren't just client and employee? Have you been _conning_ me, Sarah Walker?"

For a second, the question panicked her, then she realized Chuck was just joking, trying to lighten the moment for both of them. She grinned. "Maybe. A little. But - me too. Again. Conning me too. Telling myself I could control this." She squeezed his hand again. "But I can't, Chuck. I just feel...the way I feel. And I can't control it. And I...don't want to."

She stood up, still holding Chuck's hand. She led him to the couch, motioned for him to sit in the middle. He did. She then pushed him down, his back on the couch, and she straddled him. "Despite what I just said, I want you to know...this isn't going to end in my bedroom. Not tonight…" She leaned down for a quick kiss. "But prepare yourself, detective, for some serious necking, some serious...investigation." She let her lips settle onto his, then pressed them against his more firmly. She felt his hands move around her waist, pulling her down, against him, pulling her against _him_. The sensations were headier than the wine, stealing her breath. Chuck's lips were Rioja red, deep and sweet, and she let herself sink into them, into him, into the moment and into the kiss. She thought of what she said to Jerri. _Yes, yes, yes…_

ooOoo

Chuck felt her weight and warmth, his wish from before come true. She was in his arms and she was not his client. He did not know what she was, exactly, or what they were. She was even more complicated than he had imagined. She was also desirable beyond his imagination - and his imagination had been in overdrive for days. But he kept his hands in bounds, carefully in bounds, although it was a desperate struggle; his hands, like other parts of him, had a mind of their own. They wanted to play hopscotch. But he convinced them - all - to behave. Just when Chuck thought he could no longer win the argument with his hands or any of the rest of himself, Sarah sat up, keeping her hands on his shoulders and her weight against them, him.

ooOoo

"Okay," Sarah muttered, shaking her head, trying to reorient herself. "We have to stop now, or we...I...won't." _I am so lost in you, Chuck Bartowski._ In an effort to gather herself and change focus - to focus on something other than Chuck beneath her: "So, we need to talk about Perry - and Sasha. I just wanted to straighten us out first." She didn't let too much of a smirk sneak into her tone on 'straighten'.

"So, Chuck, what does it mean that the CIA is involved?"

Chuck looked unsure. "I don't know. But I take it that even if I'm not working for you, we are still ...working together?"

Sarah smiled down at him. " _Together_ , Chuck. Yes, together. Let's figure this out, okay?"

Chuck smiled up at her. "Together. We'll figure it out."

* * *

 **A/N2** The middle of our story, roughly. Tune in next time as Chuck and Sarah try it as partners, Chapter 12, "Three-Legged Race".

The new chapter of (Mis)Ed is about done. I should post it tomorrow or Tuesday. Stateside once again as of yesterday.


	12. Three-Legged Race

**A/N1** More story. We finally move past Tuesday!

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TWELVE

 _Three-Legged Race_

* * *

Still Later, Tuesday, March 28

* * *

Chuck was not sure how he made it back to the office. He did not remember driving there. He only remembered her. Sarah. Soft above him. Soft and demanding.

He had said goodbye to Sarah and she to him, both using their lips but not their words, not until the end, when she looked at him, her gaze soft but somehow pointed. "Thank you, Chuck. For listening. For tonight." She dropped her voice to a whisper, "For the couch."

He kissed her and she put her hand, warm and soft, around the back of his neck and caressed it with her thumb. Chuck knew why cats purr - even if he could not do it himself. She smiled a small, gentle smile. "Soon. Talk to you soon, Chuck Bartowski."

So much he wanted to say - but he could feel himself starting to spiral. Better to let the kisses be his words. He kissed her once more. "Yes, soon. Very soon."

At the office, he shut down the engine of the Vic and scanned the parking lot. Perry did not seem to be there, or any others of his ilk. No dark SUVs. He sat for a second in the quiet. It had been a remarkable Tuesday. He started the day believing he was Sarah Walker's client. He ended it in her arms, her client no more. What he was had not yet been clarified, but it included being someone she...investigated...on her couch - and that was good enough for now. Her taste, a spiced liqueur, oranges and cinnamon, was still on his lips. He started humming to himself. Hall and Oates, _Private Eyes._

Chuck got out of the Vic and closed the door. He heard another door shut just after his. He looked around and saw Morgan. He was standing next to the pancake-batter beige AMC Matador his grandmother had left him when she died. It was the only car Chuck knew that seemed sillier than his own. The thing also seemed to be made entirely of sheet metal, a poor man's - a very poor man's - Delorean.

Morgan waved and jogged over. "Hey, Chuck, man, didn't think you'd ever get here! Where have you been? You left the course like you had somewhere to go."

"I did, Morg."

Morgan looked at Chuck expectantly, waiting for details. But the evening had been too much, meant too much, for Chuck to share it just then. He would tell Morgan about it, a little about it, soon; for now, though, he wanted to hug the evening to him, keep it to himself. "Where's Alex?"

Morgan screwed up his face. "She's got a big day tomorrow. Her first day serving breakfast in her regular spot. Breakfast burritos! She has to be up at the same time as the Dunkin Donuts guys, so I told her to go home and get some sleep. If I had gone with her, well, dude, sleep would not have been her first priority…"

Coming from another guy, that would have been a brag, but from Morgan, Chuck knew, it was simply the truth, a confession. Chuck had also seen the frustration on Alex's face after Casey interrupted them. It was obvious she had expected the evening to take a different _course_ , and not a golf course. Chuck smiled to himself as Morgan's putt-putt slogan came to mind.

"So, I will see her tomorrow. We are going to go out to dinner. Would you like to come, Chuck?"

"Thanks, Morg. But I don't want to crowd you two." But then he thought of Sarah. She still hadn't met Morgan or Alex - really, she hadn't met anyone except Ellie. "Well, wait, can I bring someone?"

"Not the Jill-bot…"

Chuck shook his head. "No, it's...um...someone new."

Morgan's face split in a pleased smile. "Chuck, my man, my man...now I get it! You did have somewhere to go… Holding out, huh? So, tell me, tell me?" He looked like a kid on Christmas morning.

Chuck started toward the office. "Okay, Morg. But hang on. Let's go inside."

As they walked in, they noticed a light on in the rear of the cafe. Morgan aimed a shoulder that way. "Billy must still be cleaning up. You think he'd give me a grape soda?"

"You can ask. Probably. If you want one, just knock on the window; he'll hear. He sometimes gives me coffee at night. I'm going inside. I just have something I need to check on."

They parted company. Chuck unlocked his office door as he heard Morgan's glass thunk-knock on the cafe window. Inside, Chuck took off his sports coat and retrieved his shoulder holster. Perry had not turned out to be as scary as Jessup had made him seem, at least not in comparison to Sarah, but Chuck felt like it might be a good idea to have his sidearm with him. He put his coat back on and went around to his computer.

The search was finally complete. Something had turned up. He clicked on the photograph. It was a picture of Virginia Monroe. The photograph was from a site buried deep on the dark web; it should not have existed at all. It was a photograph from a CIA file. Virginia Monroe was CIA.

Chuck sank absently down into his desk chair, trying to take that in. Playing a hunch, Chuck keyed in Perry's name, targeting the same source as the photograph of Virginia. Nothing came back. If Perry was CIA, the site had no access to anything about him.

Chuck spent a few minutes doing his best to make sure his footprints were untrackable online. Then he printed a copy of the Virginia Monroe photograph. He needed to talk to Sarah but he would wait until tomorrow.

Morgan came in carrying a to-go cup bigger than his head. "Morg, you know that much grape soda is a bad idea…"

Morgan nodded but continued to suck the purple liquid through the straw. Chuck folded up the photograph he printed and put it in his jacket.

"Want to walk a bit?" Chuck had not been drinking a lake of grape soda but he did not feel like going to bed. Morgan continued to slurp but nodded again.

Chuck shut off his computer and Morgan led them out of the office. Chuck locked the door and they started down the sidewalk of the strip mall, past the cafe.

Morgan finally came up for air. "Wow! I needed that. Running from Casey today, I saw my life flash before my eyes, and there was not enough grape soda in it."

"You worry me, Morg, you really do. But here, give me a sip." Morgan handed the huge cup to Chuck. He took a swig. It tasted like viscous grape cologne - with bubbles. Chuck pulled back from the straw in disgust. "Oh, Morg! 'By the living Gawd that made you/You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!'"

Morgan gave Chuck a puzzled glance and then shrugged. He took the cup back. "So, who is she, Chuck?"

Chuck smiled involuntarily, and Morgan noticed. He smiled at Chuck again.

"Her name is Sarah, Sarah Walker. She's a kindergarten teacher."

"Really? A schoolmarm, like in the Westerns? Little glasses and a high collar?"

"Jesus, Morg, this isn't a Zane Grey novel. No, no little glasses, no high collar. A schoolmarm, I guess, if by that you just mean _teacher_. But not if you mean _unattractive_ or _plain._ She's so beautiful I almost can't look at her directly, like the sun."

"Wow! She sounds great. Has this been going on long?"

Chuck stopped walking. "Hard to answer that. We went out on a blind date. Ellie set us up. I thought she wasn't interested. Anyway, she hired me while we were on the...date. I wasn't even sure it still counted as a date, but then we started...um...collaborating on the case, and the collaborating turned out to be more dating. At least, I think so."

"How can you be dating someone and not know it, Chuck?"

"Are you really asking me that, Taco Bell?"

Morgan grimaced, then grinned. "Oh, yeah, right. Pot. Kettle. Black. Got it. But hey, you can't tease me about performance anxiety anymore, man. I got that whipped…"

"From your mouth to God's ear, Morg."

"Huh?"

* * *

Wednesday Evening, March 29

* * *

Sarah said _yes_ to dinner. Chuck let Morgan and Alex choose the place. They chose Castle Burgers. Alex had not been and Morgan was eager for her to see it. Chuck picked Sarah up. She kissed him right after opening the door. She was dressed casually, as was Chuck. Castle Burgers, after all.

He got in the car, surprised to find her all the way in the middle of the front seat. He sat down and she scooted over even closer. After he started the car, Sarah grabbed his arm and put it around her shoulders. "I like these bench seats," she whispered into his ear, "very couch-like." She giggled as he blushed. As he drove, she turned a bit in the seat, cuddling into him, her head resting on his shoulder.

Although he did not want to, he fished the photograph of Virginia Monroe from his pocket and handed it to her. She unfolded it and stared at it for a minute, straightening herself in the seat.

"Really, she's a CIA agent? I had no clue. Of course, I haven't really talked to her in person but for a minute on a crowded Meet The Teacher night. Or on the phone. At least this tells us something about her scanning the perimeter. She's been trained."

"Do you think she is really Sasha's mom?" Chuck looked at Sarah out of the corner of his eyes, trying to keep most of his attention on the road.

Sarah sighed. "I don't know. My gut says she is. Something about her conversations with me on the phone. I talk to moms a lot; she just...sounds like one, despite the fact that she has always seemed...I don't know...cool, controlled, non-committal. Spy-like, I'd now say. My gut says she is both: a spy and a mom. Although that's an odd combination. You know what they say: _Spies don't fall in love."_

"They say that? Who says that?" Chuck was genuinely puzzled.

Sarah shrugged. "Spies, I guess. Cons, too."

Chuck hesitated, then asked. "Your dad?"

Sarah sat quietly for a moment. "Yeah. He never used that exact phrase, but he told me again and again that no one can be trusted, that love truly is blind, that those emotions are for...suckers."

Chuck kept his eyes on the road but nodded once. Sarah cuddled back in against him, the movement itself a comment on and rebuttal to her dad's lessons. Chuck pulled her closer and she kissed his cheek.

"By the way, I tried to locate info about Perry on the site that coughed up Virginia's photo; there was nothing there."

Sarah pondered that for a minute. "I can't say I am shocked. Our friend Perry is a player in all of this, but I started to wonder last night, after you left, if he was really playing for the Company."

"You mean you didn't go right to sleep after I left?" Chuck was fighting a grin.

"No, as a matter of fact, I couldn't sleep. My bed...felt empty." She glanced down at her hands.

"Yeah," Chuck offered, "my bed didn't feel like where I was supposed to be."

Sarah looked out the passenger-side window for a second before turning back to Chuck. "Do you think our bed problems were related?"

Chuck took advantage of having stopped for at a light to lean in and kiss her cheek, her ear. "The sort of problem a...couple...of suckers might have?"

Sarah's smile lit the interior of the Vic. "A couple...of suckers…" she repeated, her voice thick. "That's us?"

Chuck dared to do it. He nodded and said _yes._

With no hesitation, she snuggled in even closer "That's us, a couple. A couple of suckers." She reached up and pulled his arm tighter around her shoulders.

And then she added, returning to the previous subject. "We do need to work out what game Perry is playing. I'm beginning to worry about Sasha and her family, more than before."

ooOoo

As they walked toward the restaurant door, Sarah gave a short laugh. "Oh, the place with the burgers - from our stakeout. They were good."

"Well, prepare yourself for an...eccentric burger environment."

She raised her eyebrows but made no comment. Chuck opened the door for them, the bell above it ringing. They went inside. Morgan and Alex waved to them from a corner booth. Xena walked up, menus in hand.

"Hey, Chuck!"

Chuck tried to make eye contact, and, as usual, failed to be able to hold it for more than a split second. "Hey, Xena! We're here to join Morgan."

Xena looked Sarah over. Sarah was trying not to stare at Xena's leather apron. "Well, the end times are upon us. Morgan has a date he didn't inflate, and Chuck has a date that ain't a pill."

Sarah's head turned sharply to Chuck, but he gave her a quick, _Later_ look.

Xena raised her black, penciled brows. "I have to say, Chuck, it's about damn time…"

Chuck didn't understand. "What do you mean, Xena?"

"It's about time you started dating someone who deserves you, you lanky clown…"

ooOoo

Sarah wondered about Chuck's wince at 'clown'. The large waitress in the leather apron had a thing for Chuck - and Chuck had no idea. But Sarah did. She reached out and took Chuck's hand.

"Thanks," Sarah responded, "I think I am the lucky one."

"Me too," Xena agreed, but so far under her breath that Sarah barely heard it. Xena then looked directly at Sarah. "You are both lucky."

The undertone of kind sadness in Xena's tone snuffed Sarah's flare of jealousy; Xena had a thing for Chuck but Xena knew it was not going anywhere. Sarah sympathized. She had an idea of how bad it would be to know and like Chuck and see no future in it. Thankfully, she did see a future in it - but she felt for Xena.

Xena led them to the corner booth. Morgan and Alex spilled out of the booth, ready to meet Sarah.

Normally, Sarah struggled with meeting new people unless their roles were already established. She was fine meeting parents on Meet The Teacher night, for instance, when she was _teacher_ and they were _students' parents_. But genuine, personal encounters, not structured by roles, those made her anxious. Her father's training got in her way, made her distanced, appraising, slightly awkward.

Somehow, though, knowing that she was with Chuck ( _and I really am!_ ) and knowing that she was meeting people he cared for, helped keep her anxiety at bay, made Morgan and Alex seem more like friends she had yet to meet than strangers.

"Sarah, this is Morgan, and this is his..."

"Girlfriend. Alex." Alex added, grinning at Chuck's stumble. "Hi, Sarah! Morgan and I are really happy, happy to meet you."

"I'm happy to meet you too." And she was. Morgan was small, bearded, with a mobile, expressive face. Alex had long wavy brown hair. She was small too - but lovely. Sarah liked them both on the spot.

"Hey, Alex," Chuck said as they all slid back into the booth, "red to brown?" Sarah wondered what that was about, then she saw Alex grab a lock of her own hair and look at it.

"Oh, yeah, I washed it out. Dad'll be happy about that," she smirked.

"Alex's dad is John Casey, the police detective."

Sarah nodded. "I haven't met him yet."

The other three shared a look. Then Morgan spoke up. "Probably better not to let him know you know me…"

"Really? Why?"

"Long story. Maybe we will tell it later. It ends with a calliope and _Enter the Gladiators._ "

Alex giggled.

Morgan looked down. "Jeez, I so wish Rhonda had not known the name of that song."

Sarah was lost. "Rhonda? _Calliope_?"

Alex went ahead and explained, telling Sarah who Rhonda was and describing the golf course chase from the night before. Sarah laughed so hard she thought she would make her stomach hurt.

Xena came back and they ordered. Morgan watched her walk away for a moment, lost in thought, then turned back to the table. "So, yeah, now Alex won't stop calling me Maximus."

Alex gave Morgan a sultry smile. "Hey, if the name fits…or you can make it fit..." Morgan blushed. In an attempt to shift attention, he turned to Sarah. "Say, Alex named a taco after Chuck - did he ever tell you that?"

Sarah shook her head. Chuck started to jump in but Morgan was out with it before Chuck could stop him. "It's called the Tall, Dick and Curly."

Sarah felt herself blush even as she laughed. Chuck looked away, but right into the oncoming Xena. He tried to look away from her too and ended up looking vaguely at the ceiling.

Alex elbowed Morgan. "Don't give Sarah the wrong idea. That was just a joke, You know, Sarah - Tom, Dick, and Harry, but Chuck's tall, a PI and has that mop of hair."

Sarah looked at Chuck, still gazing at the ceiling tiles, and she fought back an urge to touch those curls, touch them as she had done last night on her couch, as part of her investigation. "No, I get it Alex. I have to say, I am really curious to taste it...taste one, I mean." Sarah's blush deepened. Silence. Then Morgan and Alex were rolling - and Chuck's face looked like a cherry lollipop atop a stick. _Bad image, Sarah._

She tried to save herself: "That came out wrong." More laughter. "So did that." Still more laughter. Sarah sighed. "I can't seem to get my mouth to work right. - Oh, shit." An explosion of laughter, even Chuck was now doubled-over. Sarah let her embarrassment go and joined in.

Xena put their food and drinks down as they all tried to collect themselves. The momentary silence was interrupted by the doorbell. Sarah looked toward the door to see a couple enter. She felt an immediate chill fall over the table. Xena turned to look. "Oh, goody. My favorite cardboard couple." She headed in their direction.

"Caviar Larkin and the Jill-bot," Morgan groused, low.

Sarah shook her head. "Did you say 'Javier'?" _He doesn't look like a Javier._

Morgan and Alex burst into laughter again. But Chuck looked pale, especially in contrast to the deep blushing laughter of just moments before. Then it struck Sarah. _Jill-bot. Jill. Ellie's brief description. The former girlfriend._ A new flare of jealousy went up.

The couple spotted them and, making a bit of a production of it, joined hands as the headed in their direction, past Xena.

"Shit." Morgan.

"Bitch." Alex.

"Sarah, I - " Chuck.

Jill gave the table a large, perfunctory smile. "Well, well, the gang's all here." She turned a smirk on Chuck. "Just can't stay away, huh?" Sarah noticed that Jill kept glancing at her. Chuck looked decidedly uncomfortable. Sarah had a troubling thought: _is he not over her?_ She felt a pain in her chest.

The man with Jill extended his hand to Sarah, giving her an LA smile, all dental white and meaningless. "Hi, I'm Bryce. Bryce Larkin." Sarah felt his gaze travel over her, serpentine. Gross. The town was full of men like him. His LA smile became even more dental white and less meaningless. He looked...interested.

ooOoo

Chuck was trying to kick himself under the table. _Jill. Bryce. Shit._ He had told Jill the other night that he and Sarah were dating. But that hadn't been true then. Or it had, but he didn't know it. Or…. _Shit. At the very least, I am going to be humiliated._

But in the midst of that fear, he realized something else. Jill was at the table - but he belonged to Sarah.

Bryce was introducing himself, turning on the charm. Turning it on...Sarah.

And then Chuck saw it for the second time. The icing over. Sarah gave Bryce a look so cool that Bryce shriveled up in it. Shrank. She reduced him to actual size, the reverse of a side-view mirror. Bryce was fumbling for something to say.

"So, you must be Sarah?" Jill. _Shit, here it comes._ "Chuck told me he was dating a Sarah. Unless you are someone else?" Jill's artificial sweetness attempted to disguise the jab.

Sarah stayed iced over. Chuck saw Morgan and Alex notice the change. She was not the warm, beautiful, slightly tongue-tied woman of moments before. Sarah _looked_ at Jill. 'Stared' was not the right word, because a stare implies a kind of interest. This look was pure sentient ice. _If a glacier had eyes…_ Jill faltered before it worse than Bryce had. She opened and closed her mouth but no sounds came out. The smirk on her face froze into a disfiguring grimace. Alex shot Morgan a significant glance. He scanned the scene and grinned back at Alex.

"Yes, I'm Sarah...and not _someone else_." Glacier-speak. Jagged, sub-zero.

"And you are dating Chuck here, my Chuck?" Jill sounded a little pathetic. Bryce glanced at Jill, reacting to her phrase.

"Not just dating," Sarah responded. "Dating _exclusively_. I'm his girlfriend." A hint of warmth and of challenge crept into the last line.

Jill stood for a moment, prepared to brazen it out...and then she wasn't. She folded. "Well, I'm...happy for you," she coughed out, unhappily. She shot a look of contempt at Morgan and Alex, then turned to Chuck. "I'll leave you with the Munchkins."

"Why is there never a good falling house around when you need one?" Alex asked, aiming her voice at Jill's retreating back.

She and Morgan started singing "We're off to see the wizard…" in tiny, shrill voices. When Jill glanced back, Morgan added, voice climbing even higher in pitch, "Follow the yellow bitch road, follow the yellow bitch road…"

Evidently, Jill and Bryce decided to eat somewhere else. The bell rang.

But Chuck did not look. He was too busy returning Sarah's kiss.

* * *

 **A/N2** I know, I know. I said things were going to speed up. _They are_. But I had forgotten that I had planned these scenes (my notes got out of order in Barcelona). Tune in next time. Chuck and Sarah start to put together the pieces of Sasha's mystery. Chuck follows Jill into the bowels of FARMA. And more. Chapter Thirteen, "Hüsker Dü".

A new chapter of MisEd will be posting in the next couple of days.

How about a review or a PM? Especially if I haven't heard from you in a while or not at all?

Z


	13. Husker Du

**A/N1** A longer chapter.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 _Hüsker Dü_

* * *

Sarah had such a great time. The face-off with Jill had given Sarah a chance to say what she wanted to say about her and Chuck, to clarify her understanding of what they were to each other, and if his kisses and caresses (above and beneath the table) could be trusted - _and they can!_ \- he was completely and deliriously happy about her clarification. The burgers had been good, the conversation funny and silly and...warm. She liked Morgan and Alex immediately, and even more as the evening passed.

With the exception of her teaching assistant, Jerri, and Ellie, Sarah really did not have friends, not real friends. She had a few other single female teachers she occasionally went out dancing with, but those evenings were often crisscrossed by petty jealousies, or by lecherous, drunken men pawing at her or one of the others, or by worries about their interest in her past (her car, her apartment, childhood). So she did not go out often, did not encourage any real intimacy.

But by the time she and Chuck and Morgan and Alex were done eating, Sarah was ready to call both Morgan and Alex friends. Dinner with friends - and her boyfriend. _Amazing!_ A couple of times, Sarah sighed and physically pinched herself, almost unable to believe it was happening.

Until recently, Sarah's emotional energies were channeled almost completely into her kids, her classroom. That's how she would always be - she loved her kids - but she was finding other people to...love. _Go ahead, Sarah, say the word._ And last night, as she tossed and turned after Chuck left, she had a thought that left her staring at her ceiling for a long time, in an admixture of hope and shock: a child of her own. Of hers and Chuck's. It was a strange thought, almost beamed into her head from somewhere else. She had never seriously considered a child of her own before: at best, the thought was a reverie, an idle daydream in a moment, infinitely far away. But suddenly, here and now, only a brief while after getting to know Chuck, and the thought seemed...possible. And the possibility seemed...sweet.

Sarah shook her head. She was getting ahead of herself, ahead of them. Last night, after dinner and when Chuck took her back to her apartment, they had parted at the door. Neither wanted to do that, but both knew it was best. It was going to be worth waiting for, being together was. She was sure. Never had she felt such desire, complete and open. So ready to give herself and be given to. But after a few heady minutes of hungry kisses and hopscotch hands, they had each backed up a step and reluctantly said goodnight. Promises were in their eyes.

Sarah had gone inside. She took the folded-up picture of Virginia Monroe out of her purse and looked at it. It made sense to her now, Virginia's behavior. Spies and cons were first-cousins, so to speak. Langston Graham had not been mistaken about Jack Burton's training as preparation for being a spy. Graham had been mistaken about Sarah's view of that training. She had never wanted it and she did not want to go on living it. She certainly did not want to dose it with steroids as going to the Farm would have done. That would have put her so far from normal she doubted she would have ever made it back.

Even in the photograph, distances were evident in Virginia Monroe's eyes. But Sarah had also seen Virginia hugging Sasha, holding Sasha's hand: her eyes had been dancing, not distanced in those moments. _Yes, a spy and a mom. What is going on, Virginia? What is your little girl so frightened of?_

Sarah put the photograph back in her purse. She went to her room and took off her clothes and got into her pajamas. The black underwear she intended to put under her little black dress was in the same drawer. She had a vision of Chuck rolling her panties down. Her knees went weak and she shut the drawer quickly in an attempt to shut off her imagination.

She went to her closet and moved some boxes around, knick-knacks and odds-and-ends. She pulled one box down, a relatively flat one marked 'photographs'. She took it to the bed and sat down crosslegged. She put her hands on the corner's of the box top and lifted. The top came off and inside was a holster of very expensive knives. They were the one present from her father - other than the instilled conwoman habits, if those could be rightly called a present - she still had. She had once had a bunny he had given her, but she had given it to a troubled little girl who had been in her class a couple of years ago, and she had felt good about it.

Jack Burton was not the sort of conman who carried weapons. Not normally. But he knew what he did could result in violence. There had always been a gun in the glove compartment of the car. And when Sarah had gotten old enough, he had taken her to a friend of his, a master of martial arts, and had him begin to train her. The training was complete, but it had focused on knives, knife combat, and knife throwing. Sarah had gifts - that was immediately clear. And so, for the next few years, her father and she had run cons in a widening circle around the town her dad's friend lived in, returning often so that Sarah could get more training. It had given her something to do in motel rooms when her dad was gone. She worked on forms, carried a thick corkboard around for target practice, got better and better, even on her own.

She hadn't gotten the knives out except for maintenance in a long time - but Perry and the news about Virginia made her think her PI might need a helping hand in some tight spot. She went over the knives carefully and then took a few minutes to run through various combat forms. She remembered, her muscles did. It all came back, like riding a bike. It also got her mind off the underwear in her drawer, Chuck without underwear. She whipped around the room, knives flashing, a dervish in pajamas.

 _Ok,_ she thought, _so I am not a normal kindergarten teacher._

ooOoo

Chuck headed home after dropping Sarah off. He unlocked the door and came inside, only to find Devon and Ellie wrapped around each other like eels on the sofa. Luckily, the eels were still mostly clothed. Before they could react, Chuck put his hands over his eyes and ran to his bedroom. He knew the way without having to look.

He heard Devon's low chuckle and the sound of a sharp slap from Ellie, then he heard her giggle. "Sorry, Chuck!"

"It's okay, sis. Nothing a few years of therapy won't fix right up!" He heard them both laugh and he laughed too. The real problem wasn't what he saw - or didn't see, Thank God - on the couch, it was what Sarah had done to him and was doing to him.

He was in love with her. He could not deny it. He did not want to deny it. He wanted to shout it, to run to Ellie and tell her. More than anything, he wanted to say the words to Sarah. But he was not sure that they were there yet as a couple, After all, they'd only been 'official' since the conversation with Jill, a few hours. But they had been together all along, since the beginning of that sideways blind date. It was fast - but fast did not mean untrue or illusory. _For now,_ he thought, _I will hug the words to me. I hope to say them to her soon._

* * *

Thursday, March 30

* * *

It turned out that he did not see Sarah on Thursday. They talked on the phone and texted, but she was busy with classroom events and preparing for another Meet The Parents night. She was supposed to talk to the Monroes at the event. Chuck planned to use that time to go to their house and look around again. Sarah was going to text him when they showed up and then let him know when they left. That was supposed to happen Friday in the late afternoon.

On Thursday afternoon, Chuck got a new case. Billy Powell, from next door at the cafe, sent a friend in. The friend had suspicions his wife was cheating on him and wanted Chuck to look into it. Chuck hated that sort of work - _the extra-scuzzy side of PI-ing_ , as Morgan put it once - but he needed the money, particularly if he hoped to keep taking Sarah out. The strange thing was Billy's friend was 81. His wife, the suspected infidel, was 82. Chuck fought back an urge to smile and satisfied himself by putting the case under the heading of _The Viagra Caper_ in his file cabinet.

* * *

Friday, March 31

* * *

So, he spent Friday morning trailing an octogenarian woman around town. It turned out that it was harder to trail someone driving very, very slowly than someone driving very fast. Several times he nearly rear-ended her. He almost got out to tail her on foot. He might still have rear-ended her. She did nothing suspicious, except practice losing races with glaciers, so he made some notes in his wire-bound notebook, with his purloined putt-putt pencil, and went to the Buy More to get some supplies. He needed batteries for his micro-recorder and some new cleaning cloths for his binoculars.

He used some time to plan more carefully for his Saturday visit to FARMA. At a resale shop, he found a pair of beat-up Carhartt twill coveralls. He still had his sanitation hat. He bought a pair of cheap sunglasses with large dark lenses, and then he found a cheap 2-gallon sprayer at a hardware store. He took it the apartment - Ellie and Devon were out - and he filled it with tap water and then dumped in a teaspoon full of orange food coloring, and a few drops of red, just to deepen the orange. It looked appropriately lethal. He sealed it up, folded the coveralls. and put both in the Vic's trunk with his clipboard, the broken GPS, the micro-recorder and his sanitation hat. He was ready for the next day.

Later in the day, after a do-it-yourself BLT at _The Go Fork Yourself_ , and grabbing some gadgets from his office and putting them in a shoulder bag, Chuck drove to the Monroe's neighborhood. He parked a couple of blocks away and on a different street. He got out and walked to the Monroe's street, his binoculars around his neck. He stood behind a tree at the end of the block and peered through the binoculars. He went down the street and back up, checking every parked car, looking to see who, if anyone, might be in the cars. No dark SUVs. No Perry. No surveillance at all. At least not that Chuck could see. His phone buzzed in his pocket.

 _Sarah_ : **Virginia and her husband here now. I will let you know when they leave.**

 _Chuck_ : **Okay, going in.**

 _Sarah:_ **Be safe.**

 _Chuck:_ **Will do. Say hi to Sasha for me. Tell her I how much I like the frog.**

 _Sarah:_ **I will. You're a prince.**

Chuck went back to the car and put his binoculars away. He got the shoulder bag and headed slowly up the street. He cut behind a house down the block. Moving quickly but circumspectly, he crossed the backyards. Luckily, kids never played outside anymore, so the yards were empty. He had to climb over a fence, but in just a moment he was standing in a corner of the Monroe's backyard. He stood still. There were motion sensors in the backyard, but no cameras that Chuck could see. There was a camera over the backdoor. But Chuck was out of range of it at the moment. He took his computer out of his bag. He checked the wifi signals available.

He initiated a program of his own that allowed him to identify the source of each signal. He pinpointed the signal from the Monroe's. He then used another program to decrypt the password. The password was complicated; it took a couple of minutes, but then he was on the network. The irony that he was tailing a grandmother in order to keep himself financially viable while he could sell software he created for a fortune struck him again. He just hadn't seemed to get himself excited about his programming work anymore or about the AI research he had once done. Something had gone out in him at Stanford, his creative spark, his self-belief, both, neither...something. But standing there, punching keys in the backyard, he felt a glimmer of his old excitement, his old zest for computer puzzles, for programming.

He was able quickly to gain control of the security system. He reoriented the camera over the backdoor so that he could approach. He shut down the motion sensors. He unlocked the backdoor and shut down the interior cameras. He left the computer on the steps in front of the rear door, put on gloves and went inside.

Despite all the security, the inside of the house was normal. Clean, nicely decorated. There were pictures around. Some were pictures of the Monroes by themselves, younger, obviously in love. Others showed the couple later, Virginia pregnant. Then there was a beautiful picture of her holding the newborn Sasha (the shock of dark hair and the light eyes were unmistakable). There were also more current pictures of the family: Matthew, Virginia, and Sasha all smiling. They seemed happy; they were happy.

One strange thing struck Chuck. None of the pictures were in identifiable locations. He looked around through the rest of the house. Nothing out of the ordinary. But then he found the door to the basement. Down the stairs was a computer lab the likes of which he had not seen since his days at Stanford. He stood in amazement, half expecting some Igor in a Stanford shirt to shuffle into view.

Everything was state of the art. Chuck went to one of the monitors. When the screen lit up, Chuck saw the screen full of programming language. He sat down, transfixed. It took him a minute, but then he began to _see_ \- the pattern became apparent. The details he would have to work through, but the program was brilliant, cutting edge AI work. He knew he was gaping at the screen. He made himself get up. There was a file cabinet in the basement. Chuck was able to pick it fairly easily.

He almost laughed when he pulled open the top drawer. There was a shoulder holster with a gun in it. Chuck moved the holster. Below it was a small pass case. A CIA badge. Virginia Monroe. The dark website was right. There was no badge for Matthew. No gun for Matthew. But he had been scanning the perimeter, doing Agenty-things.

Chuck's phone buzzed again.

 _Sarah_ : **Monroes are on the move.**

 _Chuck:_ **Thanks. I will get out now.**

 _Sarah_ : **Come by the apartment later?**

 _Chuck:_ **Sure, you okay?**

 _Sarah:_ **Yes. I need to know you are.**

Chuck put his phone in his pocket and closed the file cabinet, relocking it. He shut down the monitor and retraced his steps through the house. He picked up the computer and, once out of sight of the camera, restored the security system to normal. There would be a time gap on the internal cameras. He had to hope no one had any reason to check their feed. He was not sure what he had discovered, if anything. He needed to talk to Sarah, tell her, see what she thought.

ooOoo

Sarah got home from the school and kicked off her shoes. She was awash with relief that Chuck's invasive recon mission had not gone wrong. But since it had, she was curious about what he might have found or seen. She stood for a moment in her bare feet. She looked at the clock. She had time. A shower. Black underwear. The little black dress...

No. She couldn't, not yet. Could she? Could they? They had waited...a few days. It was all happening fast. But she did not feel frightened, she did not have misgivings.

Still, no. Not that she didn't want it. She wanted it worse than she knew how to say. She huffed at herself, resolving against it. She went and changed into jeans and a t-shirt. A few minutes later, Chuck knocked.

Sarah saw him and was relieved anew. She practically jumped into his arms. She kissed him hard, all her anxiety and desire pressing against his lips. He kissed her back, _so good, so good._ She felt his hands slip under the hem of her t-shirt and all she could think was: _yes, yes. Yes._

No. She let go and slid down and off him, giving his neck a quick kiss. They crossed over to her table and sat down.

"Thanks - um, for that." Chuck gestured back toward the door with a motion of his head. Sarah could see his eyes lock on her lips again. She made herself not lick them.

"How should a girlfriend meet her boyfriend when he returns from feats of derring-do?"

Chuck blanked for a second. "Are you implying I am Dudley Do-Right?" Sarah giggled cheerfully in response.

"But, wait, if I am Dudley, aren't you Nell, Nell Fenwick? But she's a redhead…"

Sarah grinned. "I can always talk to Alex…"

Chuck mock-shuddered. "No, we can imagine Nell went blond. But, does that make the Crown Vic a character too, _Horse_? You know, in the cartoon, Nell was more interested in Horse than in Dudley…"

Sarah shrugged. "I do like your car…"

"Says the woman who owns a Porsche."

"Says the woman who can think of nothing right now but kissing you some more…"

Chuck scooted his chair to her and Nell corrected Dudley on the object and nature of her interests.

ooOoo

"Okay, okay," Sarah said breathlessly. "We need to stop." She pushed her chair a little distance from Chuck's and readjusted her t-shirt. Chuck was lost in a dream, spacey. She snapped her fingers. _I love you, Sarah._ "Hey, Chuck?"

He re-entered Earth orbit. "Yeah?"

"So tell me about the Monroes."

Chuck related it all to her. She listened closely. At one point, she scooted her chair back toward him and reached into his inner sports coat pocket, pulling out his wire-bound notebook and his pencil. She opened the notebook and started to write with the stubby pencil she pulled out of the wire-binding. Then she noticed the slogan on it. She looked at it and then at Chuck, with a grin and narrowed eyes. He smiled and shrugged - but went on with his story. She made a few notes.

When he finished, she looked at him, her eyes glowing with admiration. "I knew you were brilliant, Chuck. And Ellie told me a little about Stanford, but, wow...To do all that. You are amazing." She loved how pleased he was by her praise, how he straightened visibly in his chair. _My_ _boyfriend!_

"So what do you think, Chuck?"

He furrowed his brow and she wanted to kiss him. But she made herself resist.

"Obviously, the Monroes are under some sort of protection and are being supported by someone. The cost of the computing power in the basement is astronomical. Someone or some government or something is funding them. Matthew is clearly a programmer and a first-rank one. He's ahead of me...and…" Chuck blushed, "that's saying something. He's working on an AI project, but I did not have enough time to get a full grasp of what he is doing, not even in outline. If I had more time, maybe if I think about it, it will click over, but it's deep stuff. My guess is that he is working on a major project, something big, worth a lot of money to the right people, the right government. I do think he and Virginia are a real couple. I also think Sasha is theirs. My guess is that Perry represents some rival group, faction, government, and that everyone is waiting for Matthew to make a breakthrough…expecting it to happen soon".

ooOoo

Sarah had unconsciously put the end of the pencil in her mouth as she concentrated. Chuck saw it and lost his concentration. She noticed. She left the pencil in place for a beat or two, her eyes suggestive, locked on his. Then she took it out of her mouth. Chuck swallowed hard and glanced away, burning all over. He heard Sarah's soft laugh.

"So, what do you think, Sarah?" He watched as she took a moment to recompose herself. He knew that he was not the only one feeling hot.

"I think that all sounds right. The timetable too. Something happened to them before, some kind of attack. That's what Sasha's dreaming about, what brought them here. There's a lot about this that is strange, that I don't fully understand, but what you said sounds like the basic plot. Do you think we can maybe get together tomorrow, spend the day together? We could work on it some more...and other things."

Chuck wanted to say _yes,_ but tomorrow was the day for Jill and FARMA. He hadn't told Sarah about his work for Casey or that it involved Jill (and Bryce). He wanted to tell her, but he knew Casey was right. This could all end badly, and he did not want Sarah exposed to it. He was also a little ashamed to be tailing his old girlfriend - and he wasn't sure how that would look to Sarah.

ooOoo

For maybe the first time since she had known him, Sarah saw Chuck hesitate. "No, I can't. I have a work thingy, a case I need to follow-up on." He wasn't lying; Sarah could tell. But he wasn't telling her everything. She didn't know quite what to make of it. She was disappointed, though, that he was hesitant. She hoped after the other night, when she had told him everything, he would feel able to do the same. She trusted him, though. She would believe he had a good reason for his hesitancy.

A little later, Chuck left. Sarah again readjusted her t-shirt after she closed the door. She was happy, but she was puzzled. "What is he not telling me?"

* * *

Saturday, April 1

* * *

Chuck drove by, watching Jill park in the FARMA lot. He went down the street and found a place to park. He was wearing the beat-up coveralls he bought. (Ellie and Devon got called to the hospital, so he took advantage of their absence and changed at home, not in the car.) He already had his hat on, and he had his clipboard too. He got the two-gallon sprayer out of the car, fool of its menacing-looking orange fluid. He grabbed the small toolkit he kept in the trunk. He stuck the broken GPS in the front pocket of the coveralls. He took a minute, adjusting his body, hoping to give the impression of overworked boredom. He headed toward the lobby.

ooOoo

Sarah saw Chuck slow as he passed a parking lot. The lot of someplace called FARMA. A woman got out of a car. Sarah did a double-take. Jill. _Jill?_

Chuck parked. Sarah did too, well behind him. He got out wearing the old coveralls she had seen him in when he left his place. He had on an LA Sanitation hat. He rummaged in the trunk of the Crown Vic. He took out a sprayer full of a dangerously orange liquid. _What is he doing?_ He sat it down, the pulled a toolbox out of the trunk. He stuffed a gadget into a chest pocket. Then she saw him physically transform. He suddenly had the look of a long-time sanitation man. _I am not the only one who can play a role._ She knew this was no liaison. She had not thought it was for a moment, even when she saw Jill. _But why is my boyfriend trailing his old girlfriend?_ She watched him go into FARMA's lobby. She sat, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, trying to decide what to do.

 _What is Dudley Do-Right doing?_

* * *

 **A/N2** Will Nell follow Dudley into the house of horrors? Who is Snidely Whiplash? Will the Crown Vic come to the rescue? Some of these questions may be answered in Chapter Fourteen, "Password".

How about leaving me a word? PM or review?

Z


	14. Password

**A/N1** Our story continues. Some discoveries are made, secrets revealed. The...stuff...is about to hit the fan.

Don't own _Chuck._ Not one jot, not one tittle.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

Chapter Fourteen

 _Password_

* * *

Sarah was certain. Chuck was on a case.

A case that _somehow_ involved Jill Roberts. _The Jill-bot_ , as Morgan called her. Chuck was dressed like a sanitation worker - or something of the sort - and he had gone into FARMA, not long after Jill Roberts had broomsticked through the lobby door. Continuing to drum her fingers on the Porsche's steering wheel, Sarah began to chew on her lower lip. Then she stopped. Drumming and chewing - both. She got out of the car. Shut the door. Stood there and then began walking. Unsure what she was doing or how she would do it, she aimed toward the lobby of FARMA.

ooOoo

The woman at the reception desk - not the one from earlier in the week, this was (probably) the weekend receptionist - looked at Chuck in a mild panic, at the sprayer full of orange liquid with a less mild panic, and then at the floor in a not-mild panic. Chuck could see her imagining the floor cracking open, cockroaches spewing out like a living, lumpy brown lava from a hellish insect volcano. Obviously, the weekday receptionist had shared the story of Chuck's earlier visit, but the story had, just as obviously, been forgotten until Chuck walked in. He waved at the woman as he crossed the lobby, noticing the security guards who did not seem overly interested in him, although one did look nervously at the orange liquid in the sprayer, taking a step backward as he noticed it.

Chuck made a show of heaving the sprayer onto the counter, the orange liquid inside sloshing around visibly. The receptionist actually rolled her chair backward, aghast.

"Howdy-doo. M'ere to do the bugs, the bug stuff. My supervisor came by, cleared it…" Chuck looked at the receptionist with as little human interest as he could manage, his eyes dull and blank.

She nodded quickly. "I'll buzz you in."

"Buzz," Chuck repeated, laughing mirthlessly. "Let's hope 'ere ain't no buzzing. Don't need no airborne-cock-a-roach army." He leaned into the desk, deliberately causing the sprayer to lean toward the receptionist but careful not actually to push it over. "If they git 'nyour hair, hell's to pay…"

The receptionist's eyes nearly bugged out of her skull. She pushed the button. Chuck grabbed the sprayer and went through the doors out of the lobby. He was well behind Jill, had not seen where she'd gone. But he stood for a minute in front of the listing of offices beside the elevator panel. _Legal, Thirteenth Floor. Well, it had to be there or in the basement, the thirteenth floor or near to hell. Where else would you put Wolfram and Hart?_

Chuck punched the up-button and got on the elevator when it arrived. He punched '13'. As the elevator went up, he put the toolbox down and took the micro-recorder out of it. He put it in his other chest pocket. Closing the toolbox, he pulled his hat down further, pushing his curls up and under the hat as best he could. The coveralls were loose, so he did not think Jill would likely recognize him from the distance. But if they ran into each other, well - not good. The elevator opened on the thirteenth floor and Chuck held his breath. No Jill. Good.

And bad. He needed to find her. He started down the hallway, keeping the bill of his hat pointed toward the floor and peeking up from time to time. The floor seemed deserted. But then he noticed a door, partially open. _File Storage._ Chuck got to the door and carefully looked through the opening. Jill was in the room. Files were spreadeagled all over the desk.

And so was Jill. Her skirt was bunched around her waist, her panties only on one leg and around her ankle. A man was on top of her. Vigorous exertion was the order of the day.

The man was not Bryce Larkin.

Feeling extra sleezy, Chuck pushed the record button on the micro-recorder.

ooOoo

Sarah walked across the lobby toward the jittery looking receptionist. There were a couple of security guards, each of whom seemed to be enjoying charting Sarah's progress toward the desk. Old story: she was used to stares, but that did not mean she liked them at all. The receptionist seemed to be torn between looking at Sarah, checking the floor and occasionally waving one hand in the air, as if she were plagued by gnats or something. But Sarah could see nothing at which the woman could be waving.

Sarah leaned on the desk and peered across it. Her dad had taught her long ago to read upside-down, even in a mirror. A very useful con skill. As she leaned on the desk, she noticed the entry for LA Sanitation. Sarah reached into her purse and pulled out her car keys. She carefully put her thumb over the Porsche emblem on her ignition key and held the keys up. "My goofball boyfriend was supposed to be working here today. He went off and left his keys. I work late and I don't want to leave the apartment unlocked. He's tallish, dark, LA Sanitation hat. Probably carrying a container with radioactive-looking goop. I worry that one night...parts of him are going to start glowing…" She widened her eyes and put on a hint of a smile.

The receptionist seemed finally to focus solely on Sarah. "Oh, yeah, he's here." She looked at one of the security guards. "Bug guy forgot his keys. His girlfriend is here to give them to him." The security guard seemed disappointed and puzzled by the boyfriend comment but he nodded. "She can leave them with you."

Sarah hid her annoyance behind an expansive smile. "I would be happy to...but we had a spat this morning and I...um...I want to say that I am sorry. I don't want to go to work with us mad at each other…" She gave the guard a frowny smile. She saw him hesitate, then relent.

"Alright, you can't stay long. Do you know where he is?"

Sarah produced her phone from her purse. "I can call him and find out where he is at." She turned and headed out of the lobby, making a show of dialing her phone. As she walked out she heard the security guard. "What the hell is _she_ doing with _him?_ "

 _Not all I want to be. But I will remedy that soon enough._ She smiled to herself in anticipation.

At Castle Burgers, after Jill and Bryce left, Sarah heard Alex refer to Jill as 'legal skank'. She ran her hand down the list of offices next to the elevator and saw the legal department listed on the thirteenth floor. _Just the place for the wicked witch._ Sarah punched the 'up' button. The elevator was already there and the doors opened. She got on and pushed '13'.

ooOoo

Chuck couldn't watch.

Not because he was emotionally affected by the scene - well, unless _grossed out_ counted as an emotional reaction but he felt it in his gut, not his chest - no, he could not watch because it was all too creepy. Even worse, as Jill's...noises reached his ears, it was clear that she was _faking it._ Chuck had no self-image as a great lover, but he had been intimate with Jill. He knew what real sounded like. It was true that they had not been together in the final couple of months, but the distance in time did not make Chuck question himself. Jill was putting on an act. _And, Jesus, what an act. Oscar-worthy._

Chuck stood in the hallway waiting for it to end. He felt less like a PI and more like a voyeur, although it was his ears and not his eyes. He put his hands over his ears. He was standing like that when Sarah suddenly was standing in front of him, her head tilted in a way that indicated that she was hearing _something_ , her eyes puzzled.

Chuck dropped his hands. "Sarah?" He mouthed her name soundlessly. The air was stil full of moans and cries, increasing in speed. Sarah peeked into the file room. She turned, her eyes wide. "Jill?" She mouthed that silently. "Who?"

Chuck shrugged. The moans and cries became a duet, climaxing in a deep male groan and a high-pitched female gasp. Chuck blushed, squeezing his eyes shut in exaggerated horror. Sarah laughed into her clenched fist, blocking any sound.

"That...that was...wonderful." Jill's voice breathy, apparently full of satisfaction.

"Yes, that was great, as always. I so look forward to Saturdays." The man's voice, rich, controlled.

Chuck knew him then. It was J. P. Malcolm Foxworth, the CEO of FARMA. Jill was swimming in alphabet soup.

There was the sound of dismounting, dismounting the table. Then the conversation continued, the sound of the voices making clear that clothing was being put on or straightened out.

"So, are you still pulling Larkin's strings, still have him doing what I want?"

"Yes, he's...um...eating out of my hand." Chuck looked at Sarah when Foxworth snorted at that.

"I bet," Foxworth added after his snort.

Jill's voice sounded slightly hurt, put out. "I do what you tell me to do…"

Placatingly: "Yes, Jill, I know. And you do it all so well. Soon, we will be able to cut Larkin loose, and then you and I can…"

"Yes?" Jill tone was hard to gauge. "What happens then?"

"Then you and I become partners - and you make partner. Just make sure our troubles go away."

The conversation was ending. Chuck grabbed Sarah's arm and they quickly moved down the hallway, through the door and into the stairwell.

Sarah turned to Chuck and asked softly: "Are you okay?"

He gave her a slightly concerned, upset look. He answered softly. "You mean about _that?"_

Sarah nodded. Chuck put the toolbox down and took her hand. "I was over her before Ellie set us up, Sarah, and, since then, all of my emotional energy has been directed at another woman."

"You mean…?"

"Yes, Vivian Rutledge."

Sarah swatted his cheek. Soft Bacall voice. "My God, you big dark handsome brute, I ought to throw a Crown Vic at you…" she swatted him again, grinning.

"I love masterful women," he whispered and returned her grin.

"You ain't seen nothing yet, buster."

Chuck put his finger on her lips for a second, then looked out the long, rectangular window of the stairwell door. Jill and Foxworth were leaving the file room. They kissed and then Foxworth headed for the elevator. Jill went into an office up the hall. Sarah had rested her chin on Chuck's shoulder and watched the scene with him. "What next, Chuck?"

Chuck clicked off the recorder. "I need to talk to Casey."

Sarah nodded. "Chuck," she started, giving him a flat look and pointing, "what the hell is in that sprayer?"

In answer, he unhooked the nozzle, aimed it into his mouth, and sprayed the orange liquid.

ooOoo

Sarah left the Porsche where it was parked. Chuck had declared FARMA cockroach-free and left with Sarah. As they got in the Crown Vic, Sarah explained how she came to be there.

"So," Chuck said, narrowing his eyes as the Crown Vic's starter whirred...then finally turned the engine, "my new girlfriend was tailing me while I tailed my old - and very _ex_ \- girlfriend." Sarah pursed her lips and nodded, embarrassed.

"I knew you weren't telling me something, and I got worried...I thought you might need some help."

Chuck took her hand, his warm and gentle. "I should have told you, but I was...sort of ashamed...I've been tailing her around on Saturdays for a while for Casey, and Morgan keeps claiming I am a stalker, and I know that's how it looks, but that's not what's happened or happening…" He told her briefly about what had been going on as he drove them to the station.

They pulled into a parking space out front. Jessup came out of the station's main doors as they finished climbing the steps. He looked at Sarah and then stopped. "Hey, it's the woman from the spook's photograph." He looked at Chuck. "Did the spook find you, yet, Dr. Watson?"

"Yeah, Jessup, He did. Have you seen him since?"

Jessup was still looking at Sarah although he was talking to Chuck. "No, haven't seen him. So, are you going to introduce me to Sherlock, here, Watson?"

It took Chuck a minute to understand. "Jessup, This is my girlfriend, Sarah."

Jessup stepped closer to Sarah. "You know this clown is a lousy detective, don't you." Jessup let himself linger on 'clown' and Sarah noticed Chuck grimace slightly.

Sarah stepped away from Jessup and took Chuck's hand, kissing it before she responded. "All I know is that he can find...anything...I need him to find…exactly...when I need him to find it." She glared at Jessup.

Jessup reddened and retreated a couple of steps. He glanced at Chuck then headed away, the words 'lucky bastard' hanging in the air behind him.

Chuck shook his head and laughed. "C'mon, let's find Casey. I want you to meet him and him to meet you."

"Was that okay, what I said to Jessup?" She hadn't wanted to fight Chuck's battles for him or to make him self-conscious.

Chuck grinned. "Yeah, except...I sorta hate that I haven't done _the detective work_...yet."

"From your mouth to God's ear, Chuck." She swung their joined hands between them for a moment, then they went inside.

ooOoo

Casey and Rhonda were on one side of the table in the interview room, Chuck and Sarah on the other. Introductions had been made, quick explanations given, and now the micro-recorder was playing, filling the small room now with Jill's cries from then. Casey was staring at the recorder, apparently grunting to himself. Rhonda was watching Sarah. Sarah could feel her gaze upon her, although Sarah was looking at Chuck.

The cries ended and the talking began. All four sat and listened, although Chuck and Sarah had heard it all before. Chuck turned off the recorder as Jill's conversation with Foxworth ended. Casey gave a punctuating, out loud grunt. They sat in silence for a second or two.

Casey: "And you asked me not to call her 'legal skank'."

Rhonda gave Casey a stern look. "So, Larkin is being played, manipulated, by FARMA, Foxworth, through Jill."

"I guess so," Chuck responded, "What's been happening with the investigation?"

Casey and Rhonda shared a look. "Nothing. We had to turn over the burner phone we found, put it in evidence. Larkin re-assigned us both…" she looked at Casey, a question, "...Thursday?" Casey nodded once, accentuated by a quick grunt. "We're off the case. Larkin gave it to Jessup."

Rhonda looked more closely at Chuck. "You seem surprised by this," she gestured at the recorder. "Why is that, Chuck?"

Chuck glanced at sideways Sarah before answering. "Well, it was always clear - pretty nearly always, anyway - that Jill's first priority was her job. That was one reason why things between us...I mean, it was great that she loved her job and wanted to do it well. I supported that. It was something I liked about her. But it turned out to be more like an obsession - and it really didn't have any room in it for anything else, anyone else, of any importance." Chuck looked at Sarah straight on. "I realized I was a wheel that turned nothing in the mechanism of her life."

Casey grunted. "Jeez, articulate PIs. What's the world coming to?"

Chuck turned away from Sarah. He took a breath. "But there's something about Jill, on the tape, something you should know, although I don't know what it means…"

Rhonda leaned forward a little. "What, Chuck?'

"All that...um...noise...that Jill was making. She was faking it. I'm...um...more or less certain."

Casey's eyes glinted with mischief. "How would you know?" Casey tried to hide a grin.

Chuck squirmed in his chair. "Because I have heard her...not-fake it."

Casey started to say something else when Rhonda backhanded his chest, hard. He gave her a wounded look; she ignored him.

"Okay, Chuck. I think we can call off the tail. Let me and Casey see what we can figure out. In one way, this doesn't change much, but it does complicate the story, reorganizes the motivations of the players. Can you go with Casey and make us a copy of that tape? Casey can show you where to do it. He can keep watch while you do."

Casey stood and Chuck did too. He grabbed the recorder and followed Casey out of the room.

ooOoo

Rhonda gave Sarah a searching look, then she smiled. "I'm really glad to know you, Sarah Walker. And I can't tell you how happy I am for you two. Chuck is one of my favorite people on the planet - one of the few genuinely good ones. And _legal skank_ (never tell Casey I just said that) was so bad for him. It's wonderful to see him in love."

Sarah felt her face burn, her whole body warm. "You think he _loves_ me?"

"Listen, I know him. Never once in the time he was with Jill did he look at her like he looks at you, act around her like he did when he introduced you." Rhonda paused, then added: " And you love him too."

Sarah glanced down but made no attempt to deny it. Rhonda laughed sympathetically. "I know, I know, it's hard to admit that to yourself and to each other. Love is scary stuff. It's also the best stuff there is. Don't feel it for too long without saying it, Sarah. It's the password to happiness."

Sarah lifted her gaze and nodded. They shared a smile. After a moment, Rhonda's eyebrows rose. "So, tell me again, _you're_ a kindergarten teacher..?"

ooOoo

Casey had his copy of the recording. Chuck thought he might tell Casey about the Monroes, then he decided against it. Casey handed him the recorder.

"That's one impressive woman, kid - Walker. Impressive."

Chuck pursed his lips. "I know, I know. And you wonder what the hell she is doing with me, right?"

Casey narrowed his eyes, annoyed. "No, Chuck. I just wonder why it took you so long to find the one."

"The...the...the one?" Chuck stammered.

Casey shot him a glance. "C'mon, Bartowski, don't make me do your job for you. You're supposed to be a detective."

* * *

 **A/N2** Tune in next time. Jill visits Chuck's office. Casey disappears. Morgan has to order more pencils. Not all in that order. Chapter 15, "Hide and Seek".


	15. Hide and Seek

**A/N1** More story.

Hey, if you want this to continue, drop me a line. Losing steam, here...

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 _Hide and Seek_

* * *

Later, Saturday April 1

* * *

Chuck drove Sarah from the police station back toward her Porsche, parked near FARMA. They were each silent for the first few minutes of the drive, thoughtful.

Chuck finally broke the silence. "Sarah, about that stuff with Jill, her faking it, I...I'm sorry to have had to say that in front of you."

Sarah looked lost in her own thoughts for a moment, although she had turned to face him. "Oh, right, no, Chuck, that's...um...no problem. I knew you two dated for a while…"

He stared ahead but twisted his lips to the side. "I just don't want you to get the impression that I am...you know, like the detectives in the books, or the movies, interspersing cases with one-night stands...or something. That's...that's just not me. According to Ellie, I am oblivious where women are concerned...

"Anyway, I honestly thought Jill and I were something to each other. That there we were going to make a dream I've had come true…"

Sarah was now fully present. She slid even closer to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. "What dream was that, Chuck?"

"It's not a Philip Marlowe dream, Sarah...I mean, maybe it is, it depends how you take the end of Chandler's last novel, _Playback_ , I guess." He stopped himself. "Sorry, I'm drifting...

"It's a dream of a family, a home...A dream of something I hardly knew before it was taken from me as a boy. Ellie was great, really great, but she could not replace Mom and Dad, recreate the home they had made.

"I thought Jill shared that dream...or that she would come to share it with me, was willing to, I don't know, consider it. That's why we...I...well, that's why. I'm not saying everyone has to do it...has to do _things_ my way, but I just want you to know what...I mean how...I mean why…" He gestured with one hand inarticulately but steered firmly with the other. "I mean...after what we saw with Jill today…"

ooOoo

Sarah lifted her head from his shoulder and kissed his bright red ear. It was attached to his bright red face, the bright red extending up under his hair and down inside his collar. _He is so adorable._

"I understand, Chuck. I do. I'm not upset. I don't regard either of us as a _sex-as-a-mere-mutually-agreeable-pastime_ sort of person. If that were true," she paused and gazed at him with open desire, "given how things are between us, we'd have been rabbiting away at the stakeout, and ever since the stakeout."

She paused and put her hand gently on his thigh. "But, like you, Chuck, I wanted to know you are dreaming too, that we are dreaming together before we are... _together_." She reached up and moved a few curls behind his ear and she kissed it again.

Chuck ferried the Crown Vic into a parking spot right behind the Porsche. He turned the key and the car shimmied and shook before it gave out one loud backfire and went quiet. Chuck's blush returned as he grimaced at the car's punctuation of Sarah's speech.

After a moment, he shook his head, clearing away his embarrassment. That done, he gave Sarah a look of desire as open as the one she had given him. "I want you, Sarah Walker. But as bad as I do - and it's bad - the emphasis is on 'you' not 'want'. Although I do want you so much. I am dreaming, Sarah; I've never dreamed so vividly before. - And did you really just say 'rabbiting'?"

She giggled and nodded. But then she became immediately serious. "I don't want to _rabbit_ with you, Chuck. I want to _Sarah-and-Chuck_ with you. When we... _make love_ …" Sarah reached over and pulled at a loose thread on Chuck's pants leg, feeling suddenly shy, exposed, "...I want it to be about _us_ , not just to be us. I am dreaming, Chuck, and I want us to be dreaming when we sleep together, especially when we aren't _asleep together_. I want you too, Chuck. It's bad."

She kept her eyes down, feeling nervous about the consequences of what she had said, particularly about her use of the word 'love'.

Chuck turned to face her, reaching out to take her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, and moving her eyes up to meet his. The brown of his eyes had become bottomless, and Sarah felt herself sink into it.

She made herself speak once more. "I don't want a night or a succession of nights. I want _you_. You, Chuck."

He kissed her so softly that it was almost as though their lips did not meet. "Dreaming together awake can be dangerous. Who knows where it might lead us, Sarah. Are you _sure_?"

She kissed him equally softly but three times; a word was spoken with each kiss: "Yes, yes, yes."

She let herself linger, submerged in the brown of his eyes. They were bottomless with promise; he held none of himself back. She put her hand against the side of his face and caressed his cheek.

She felt his cheek tighten with his smile, huge and warm. "Yes?" he asked. She nodded.

"Yes?" she asked. He nodded.

"Come over tomorrow? I want to make it special. I have to help Jerri tonight. She's prepping for a big in-class presentation on her time as my assistant. So, tomorrow. We could order in and you could plan to...spend the night? "

His smile grew huger, warmer: "Yes?"

"Yes."

ooOoo

Chuck watched her drive away. He wanted today to be tomorrow, but he would have to wait. The goodbye kiss she had given him was fully enfleshed, not another of the ghost kisses they had shared as they agreed to tomorrow. But that goodbye kiss also meant that he was in no mood to go home to his room or back to his tiny office. Unsure what to do with the evening, he decided to just drive - at least for a little while. The Crown Vic jumped to life when he turned the key, as if the goodbye kiss had warmed its engine too.

As Chuck wheeled the Vic into traffic, he noticed a long line of cars in the opposite lane, all crawling behind one that had just reached him. He looked up. It was the wife of his client, _The Viagra Incident_ client. Chuck drove down the block and initiated a series of right-hand turns. He still managed to be at the next intersection she came to before she arrived. He was able to find a spot behind her as some of the trailing cars turned down side streets so as to escape from the no-one-died funeral procession behind her.

Chuck settled in. This might take a while. It was something to do at least, something for which he would get paid.

The elderly woman drove on a few blocks then parked. Chuck parked a few spots behind her. She got out of the car and walked to the front door of an apartment building. A man younger than her, but by now means young, probably in his early sixties, came out of the front door and met her, giving her a familiar hug. Chuck felt his stomach flip a little. He had been hoping the man who hired him was wrong. The two of them went inside.

Chuck got out his wire-bound notebook and his golf pencil and noted the address, the time. He then got out of the car. He took out his phone as he walked to the apartment building door, calling up the camera app.

He could feel the sleaze collecting on him. _Did sleaze collect? Or did it grow, or what? Like dew or like fungus?_

He pushed a couple of apartment buzzers and one of the apartments buzzed him in as a crackling voice from another kept repeating, "Yes? Who's there?"

Chuck went inside. Seeing no elevator and playing a hunch, he started walking down the first-floor hallway. As he reached the corner, where the hallway turned, he heard noises. The door of the next apartment was not fully closed. Low sounds were coming out of the apartment. _Oh, Jesus, twice in one day - finding someone_ in flagrante delicto _. First Jill, now somebody's grandma?_ The low moans intensified. Male. Then he heard an elderly woman's voice: "Bobby! Oh, Bobby! Please, Bobby!"

Chuck stood by the door and readied his phone to take a picture. He felt profoundly ashamed of himself, but he needed the money. He wanted to pay for whatever he and Sarah ordered in tomorrow, and he was down to little more than pocket change. Holding the phone at the ready, he pushed the door of the apartment open and stepped inside.

ooOoo

The apartment was dark - apparently, the curtains were drawn. The front room into which he stepped, the kitchen, was enshadowed. The voices were coming from the next room. Chuck could see into it from where he stood but could not see anyone. An orangy flicker of candlelight was playing against the wall of the next room.

"Oh, Bobby! Bobby, please come!"

With a shudder of self-disgust, Chuck raised his phone and stepped into the next room.

The woman he was following was seated at a small table in the center of the room, facing away from Chuck. Across from her was the man who greeted her, hugged her. They were holding hands across the table. Between them was what looked like an emptied snow globe that now contained one red bulb, like a bulb from a string of Christmas tree lights. Candles were lit around the room. The man had a massive turban on his head. In the middle of its front was a huge costume-jewelry rhinestone. The man was chanting in a low moan. The woman was tilting side to side, slowly.

Chuck stood transfixed, mortified. Just as the man noticed him, Chuck's arm sank. He slipped his phone in his pocket.

"Can I help you, son?" The man let go of the woman's hands and stared at Chuck.

"Um...no...no...sorry. I was walking by and the door was open and I heard...noises. I thought someone might need help."

The woman had pushed her chair back and turned to look at Chuck too. "Now we will have to start over," she intoned in annoyance, speaking to the turbaned man, but glaring at Chuck. Making her disapproval known, she turned back to the man in the turban. "Bobby was coming. He was near. He was about to cross over. I could feel him!"

The man patted one of her hands. "Don't worry, Gladys, we can re-establish contact with your long-lost son. We have done it before. We can do it again." He shifted his focus to Chuck. "My door is broken - bent hinges. The apartment manager is supposed to come later today to fix it. I was hoping it would stay closed.

"I have to ask you to leave, son. I am her medium and we are involved in delicate spiritual communication. The presence of outsiders," the man paused, taking stock of Chuck, "or of disbelievers interferes with the conflux of energies…"

Chuck turned on his heel and marched shamefaced out of the apartment. He retraced his steps down the hallway, chased by renewed low moans and renewed cries of "Bobby!"

Stepping into the slanting sunlight of late afternoon, he was embarrassed - but also relieved. Perhaps her husband would not be happy about what his wife was doing (there was a reason she was keeping it a secret), but at least he had not had to take pictures of octogenarian coupling and show them to the man.

He was going to have to change the name on the file, though, replace 'Viagra' with 'Medium', except _The Medium Incident_ sounded less interesting as a case name, about as boring as a case name could get, in fact. Of course, he was a sort of middling detective, so maybe that was a case that suited him.

Maybe Casey was right. Maybe he wasn't cut out for this job. Maybe he should start programming again. The AI program he saw at the Monroes had been tickling his mind since he saw it; he had pondered it as he had the chance. He felt like he was getting clearer about what the program represented, but he just didn't quite have possession of it yet.

ooOoo

Chuck decided to go to the office and change _The Viagra Incident_ file. He would call the client and explain what he had found out about his wife, about Gladys. After he parked the Crown Vic in the lot at his office, he checked the other cars. No dark SUVs.

Perry seemed to have disappeared.

Chuck walked to his office, waving at Billy Powell, who was busing a table at the cafe. Chuck started to unlock his door when he heard the dull peck of high heels on the concrete behind him.

"Hi, Chuck." Chuck sighed inside but gave no sign. He turned to see Jill standing there. He then realized he had seen her car in the lot, but because he had been looking for Perry's, he failed to attend to it.

"Um, hey, Jill. What're you doing here?"

She seemed stymied by Chuck's unenthusiastic tone for a minute. She regrouped and answered. "I...I think I need your help. You know, with a case." She blew out a breath slowly, then tried once more. "I want to hire you."

Chuck had no idea quite how to respond. The earlier image of her on the table at FARMA crowded into his consciousness unbidden. He blushed.

Jill noticed. "What is it, Chuck? Are you going to turn me down?"

"Well, I don't know, Jill. I guess I need to know what you want."

She nodded and glanced around. "Can we go inside?"

Chuck unlocked the door, opened it and held it for Jill. She thanked him as she went past. She sat down in the chair. Chuck went around the desk and took his seat. They had sat like that before. Jill had the same look of mild contempt on her face that she often did when she visited the office, contempt for its revelation of Chuck's lack of success. He saw her try to school her features, to wipe the look from her face.

"So, Jill, what do you need me to do?"

She looked at him for a moment; she seemed to be trying to make a final decision. "I need you to get some dirt on someone for me." Her tone was matter-of-fact, flat.

Chuck had not expected that. "Really? Who?"

"The man who runs FARMA, J. P. Malcolm Foxworth." Her teeth seemed to be set on edge by the name.

Again, images from earlier in the day flashed through Chuck's mind, echoes of sounds. "But isn't he the CEO of your biggest client?"

She nodded tightly. "Yes, but I have...my reasons. I need leverage. But I can't explain why, Chuck. I have reason to think he has ties to...questionable people. Criminals, maybe mobsters. I need you to find out for me. Will you do it?"

Chuck leaned forward onto his elbows and interlocked his fingers, resting his face against them. He owed Jill nothing, and the earlier events of the day made him less willing to help her, to be involved with her in any way, but...helping her might allow Chuck to help Casey (and Rhonda). And he couldn't shake the feeling that Jill was, though not remotely blameless for her situation, in something over her head.

"Can you give me any more concrete information than that?"

Jill shook her head. "No, and just asking you to do this could get me into big trouble legally, so I need you to keep it to yourself, tell no one, and keep no records. Just see if you can find out anything...please?"

She gave him the old smile, the one from their earlier days. It had been good between them at the beginning. But Chuck was with Sarah now, and he knew that the new good he had with Sarah was so much better than old good he had with Jill. The smile left him unmoved.

"I will think about it, Jill. I'll call you tomorrow or the next day with my decision." He stood up to make it clear they were done. Jill was crestfallen. She had expected more results from the smile, clearly. She got up and looked at him imploringly. "I really could use your help, Chuck."

He gave her a tight nod, an image of her own from earlier. She turned and left the office. Chuck sat back down and blew out a long, long breath.

ooOoo

Chuck put _The Medium Incident_ file away. He had called the client and explained that his wife was not cheating on him. The man was relieved by Chuck's report but saddened by it too. Evidently, although the man had not shared details, the loss of their son had been hard on them both. Chuck took the man's payment over the phone. At least he had some money again.

He left the office and locked the door. Billy was standing outside, smoking one of his omnipresent hand-rolled cigarettes. "I see the old flame stopped by." The pinpoint flame of his cigarette glowed in the dark. Chuck could smell the slightly spicy odor of the imported tobacco Billy smoked.

"Yeah, she wanted to hire me."

"She wasn't here to get back together?"

"No, and it wouldn't have mattered if she was. We are through. We were through before we were through, I guess."

"Well, if that's so, then I guess I can say that I never liked that one much, Chuck. Wrong for you. Not nice." Another billow of spicy smoke.

"That's what I think now too, Billy. Have a good evening."

"Say, Chuck?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know a guy, mirrored sunglasses, baggy suit, dark Escalade?"

 _Perry._ "Yeah, I do, sort of."

"He was around here earlier today. Was standing at your door. I wondered what was up and came out. He walked off, but he gave me a strange feeling."

"Huh. Thanks for telling me, Billy. And if you see him again, tell me, but don't interact with him. He's not a nice guy."

Billy pulled on his cigarette, nodding. "That's the problem with your job, Chuck. Too many not-nice guys and not-nice gals for a nice guy like you."

Chuck said nothing in response. He nodded his thanks and headed for the car.

ooOoo

The miniature golf course was in full putt-putt when Chuck arrived. Alex's truck was outside. She had a line of customers and the course looked busy, lots of folks with clubs. _Good for you, Morg._

The Vic shut down quietly, and Chuck gave the dashboard an encouraging rub. His head was spinning. He was so excited about tomorrow, about his date with Sarah. But the day had been bizarre. FARMA, Jill, Casey, Rhonda, the medium and the mother, Jill again, Billy. It was a hard day to process. He sat for a minute, then got out.

The line in front of Alex's truck had shortened, and so Chuck joined it. Alex saw him immediately, since he was much taller than the kids and moms in line in front of him.

"Tall, Dick and Curly!" she shouted, waving expansively at him. As one, the moms and kids rotated their faces toward him, like puzzled lighthouses. A couple of the moms let their gaze travel the length of him, making his self-consciousness all the more acute.

He smiled and laughed nervously. "That's...that's a taco she named after me." The moms who had appraised him now licked their lips. "But not for any...you know, romantic reason. It's just that I am tall…" More gazes traveling his length. His face was burning hot.

"Ladies, ladies, have I got your attention? Who wants a Tall, Dick and Curly." Several hands shot up. Chuck dropped his head in defeat. Alex's laughter twinkled.

Eventually, Chuck got to the truck. He had to endure several moms biting into their tacos with relish while eyeing him. Alex's face was red with laughter by the time he got to place his order. He shook his head at her. "A couple of _bean burritos_ , please."

"What? You don't want tonight's hottest item?"

"That would be a _no,_ and thanks for the ramekin of humiliation on the side." Chuck tried to sound hurt.

Alex shrugged one shoulder and grinned. "Just drumming up business. Where's your girl Friday, Sarah? It's Saturday night…"

"I saw her earlier today. She had to help her teaching assistant get prepped for a college-course thingy, so I won't see her again until tomorrow."

Alex smiled at him, no teasing this time, just warmth. "Actually, I knew you had. Dad stopped by a couple of hours ago and mentioned that he met Sarah. He was excited for you - you know, in his way. He liked her." Alex looked at her watch. "Actually, he said he had to run an errand and would be back soon, but he hasn't come back."

"He's Casey. I'm sure he's fine. So, your dad was here and Morgan is still alive and the place is in one piece?"

"I know," Alex said, making her eyes big, "will wonders never cease? Morgan's in the building. A summer camp group is here. Made it extra busy."

She had been preparing Chuck's order as they spoke and she handed it to him. He started to dig out his wallet and she waved her hands. "On the house. Thanks for the advertising. I think I need to put a picture of you up beside the Tall, Dick and Curly."

Chuck grabbed a couple of packets of hot sauce. "Please, please, no." He turned away as Alex laughed again.

ooOoo

Morgan was scouring the recesses under the counter when Chuck walked in. He heard Chuck enter and looked up from his task. "Howdy, Chuck. Sit and eat. I'm trying to find more pencils. Mine keep disappearing. It's a mystery. Say, why don't you take it on, as a case, you know?"

Chuck squeezed hot sauce on his burrito and tried not to look guilty. "Busy night, Morg?"

Morgan rubbed his beard and smiled big. "Yeah. I think word's getting around. And about Alex's truck. Business just keeps picking up. How's yours?"

Chuck shrugged non-committally. "I have some cases. Ended one today."

"Ooh, really? Was it juicy? Major baddies or major hotties involved?"

Chuck thought of the funny-sad little seance around the red-glowing snow globe. "Nah. Nothing worth reporting on, really." He might one day find that story funny, but it wasn't today, although he recognized the absurdity of it.

"So, missing pencils, huh?"

Morgan nodded. Chuck got out his wire-bound notebook and the small pencil. He made a couple of notes, brandishing the pencil between episodes of writing. Morgan never noticed. "Are they expensive?"

"Nah, man, individually they don't cost much but they're a pain to keep up with and the company has my next shipment on backorder."

"Hmmm…" Chuck chewed on the end of the pencil, then remembered Sarah with it. His pants grew tight and a shudder of desire ran along his frame. "I will look into it, Morg."

Morgan guffawed. "That's funny, Chuck. I was really just kidding. I can always buy some plain ones at the Buy More to tide me over."

Chuck flipped the notebook closed and leaned toward his friend. He put the short pencil behind his ear. "Never fear, Morg," he whispered, looking around as if he feared being overheard, "I am on the case. Those pencils may hide, but I will seek..."

* * *

Sunday, April 2

* * *

Chuck had on the shirt and slacks Ellie picked out for him. He had a bottle of wine in his hands. He knocked on Sarah's door.

She opened the door wearing a little black dress.

No, correction: she opened the door wearing _the_ little black dress. The Platonic Form of little black dresses.

The little black dress all other little black dresses dreamed of being.

It was short, so short, leaving her long legs endlessly bare until the black heels buckled around her ankles.

Chuck's reaction was not platonic, but he felt catatonic. Sarah giggled at him, reached out and pulled him inside.

* * *

 **A/N2** Another cliffhanger...of a different sort. Tune in next time for more fun and danger. Chapter Seventeen, "Follow the Leader".

Review, PM - a little encouragement?


	16. Follow the Leader

**A/N1** Well, folks asked for it and I had (more or less) planned it.

Thanks for the responses to the last chapter.

You can think of this as Chapter 15b, the other side of the cliffhanger.

(For David Carner)

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 _Follow the Leader_

* * *

Sarah pulled Chuck into her apartment. He had been standing, staring, a statue. The look in his eyes: astonished desire.

Sarah enjoyed a satisfied inward smirk. _My dress: a direct hit._

"Do you like it?" She twirled slowly in front of him, careful not to spin fast enough to cause the skirt to lift, at least not much. All she had beneath it was the lacy black underwear - and there was very little of it. That was a coming attraction. To let him see it now would be like reading him the final pages of a detective novel first. Sarah had been looking forward to Chuck's detective work, despite the fact that she knew what he was going to discover. She was so looking forward to him discovering it and to enjoying his reaction when he did.

Sarah gave Chuck a look, tucking her chin down and pushing a lock of softly curling hair back behind her ear.

"So, Chuck, what do you want to eat?" She kept her tone angelic but enjoyed her devilish question. Chuck opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. He opened it again and it just stayed slightly open. He made no sound.

"Chuck? _Eat_?"

Silence. Then, finally, a struggle, a sound. "Pp...eeeeezzzaa?"

"Was that an actual word, Chuck, or a yawp?" She could see him trying to redirect his gaze, to stop staring. He finally turned himself around and faced her closed door, his back to her. He put the wine bottle on the floor.

"Pizza, Sarah. Pizza. And I am sorry. I am usually more respectful…"

"What are you doing, Chuck?"

"I am trying to compose myself."

Sarah giggled, soft music, traceries in the air. "Why? After I went to all this trouble to _discompose_ you?"

"The way you look, Sarah. The way you...I can't bear it. I think my heart is going to leap out of my chest - and that might be okay, 'cause as far as I can tell, all my blood has gone somewhere else, anyway…"

Sarah stepped toward him until she was pressed against his back. She leaned against him, pushing her chest into unmistakable contact with him. She felt herself respond, the telltale tightening, hardening, the increase in sensitivity. She breathed against his neck, her breath warm. She saw the blush rise on his neck. She slipped her arms around him, low, around his waist, clasping her hands just below his belt.

"That is not helping my blood relocation, Sarah. Not at all. Um...nada."

She licked her lips and put them lightly against his ear, a butterfly flutter. "I was hoping to _encourage_ the relocation."

"But...what about dinner?" He turned in her arms and they were front to front. She was able to more fully enjoy his blood relocation. Her blood followed the path of his, flowed toward his; her center became liquid heat.

"I can wait for food, Chuck. I can't wait for you."

That seemed to free Chuck from his partial stupor. Immediately, his arms went around her and he pulled her closer to him, pushed himself against her.

They stood like that for a moment, each enjoying the feeling of the excitement and expectation that gripped them. It was not that their feelings simply coincided, two. It was that they were gripped by the same feeling, one - their attraction to each other was something real, something more than the sum of the individual feelings of attraction, something bigger than both of them.

A single dream that housed them both.

Sarah leaned back a little, both so as to look Chuck in the face and so as to press her middle against his harder. His brown eyes were banked hearth fires, smoldering. But he took the moment to step back from her and to let his gaze envelop her.

ooOoo

"Silk?" Chuck was able to ask, noting the way the fabric, intensely black, wrapped her body in highlights and shadows, graphic lines along her curving form. She was so lovely he could not breath; she was so desirable he could not think. He had no earthly idea why such a woman would want him - but she did and he was so grateful he had to blink back tears.

She noticed. Her blinking smile in response was wonderful - a reciprocation of his reaction to her. She twirled for him again, unbidden, and faster this time. He caught a flash of narrow lace and the swell of her hips. She looked at his face, delighted by his reaction, then she was back in his arms, kissing him with raw hunger, full demand.

Her hand snaked down the front of him, to his zipper, and then inside his pants. After a moment of determined exploration, he was in her hand. He was unsure if it was her hand scalding him or if he was scalding her hand. Frankly, the math did not matter. He slipped his hands below the short hem of her skirt and slid them up to grasp her hips, enabling himself to feel her and the lacy panties all at once.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and moaned with a deep, quiet intensity. "Take them off me, Chuck."

He did as she asked and, after getting them below her hips, he knelt in front of her and inched them down her legs and carefully around her heels.

"My shoes, Chuck."

He unbuckled the straps around her ankles, taking his time with the small silver buckles and the thin straps of leather. She shifted her weight so that he could remove one, then the other. He slid each off and ran his hand along the bottom of each foot as he did. He felt her tremble. He stood back up, one hand trailing along the inside of one bare leg. Her blue eyes were aflame. He had seen them ice over: this was the complete opposite. His hand came to rest beneath her skirt and her breath caught.

She stepped back. "So you like the dress?"

Chuck nodded vigorously. She laughed. "I've been saving it for a very special occasion. This is a very special occasion, Chuck."

"You look beautiful, Sarah. I have no adequate words, none."

"So I have reduced the articulate detective to inarticulateness?" She gave him an impish grin, so sexy and suggestive he almost fainted. He nodded again. She looked down at him, his open zipper. "Well, maybe not complete inarticulateness…" She stepped to him and took him in hand again. "I would say this is eloquent."

He slid his hands along her jaw and back into her long blond hair, pulling her to him and kissing her. He felt her squeeze him and felt her tongue caress his at the same time. He moaned, unable to stop it, not wanting to. He pulled the zipper of her dress down and then lifted the hem of her dress up. She let go of him long enough to lift her arms. He took the dress off her, the silk flowing like water.

She unbuttoned his shirt and took it off him. She ran one hand down his chest. He traced the lacy edges of her bra slowly, listening to her labored breathing and his own, then reached around her and unhooked it. It fell to the floor and she pressed her bare chest to his.

After another long, searing kiss, tasting one another, every moment becoming more dear to each other, striving for more perfect union, Sarah took him in hand again.

"Come to my bedroom, Chuck. Make love to me."

She gave him another squeeze then turned toward the bedroom. He could not remember how to walk. She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes teasing him. "Well, Chuck?" She started walking. He finally reestablished a connection with his feet and followed behind.

She stopped in the doorway of her room and turned back again.

"If you're enjoying the view," she said, her voice soft and Bacall, all _To Have and To Have Not_ , "just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Chuck? Just put your lips together and...blow…"

Chuck had no thought after that but her.

* * *

 **A/N2** Okay, so this was all fun and no danger. And it was less a chapter on its own than the continuation of the last chapter. Still...it seemed worth a stand-alone entry (ahem) in the story. More soon. Chapter 17, "Risk".


	17. Risk

**A/N1** Another short chapter. I am prepping to lecture in Milwaukee tomorrow and so don't have time for a longer one. (From 80 degrees-Bama to four degrees-Wisconsin. Gah.)

As I said, stuff is about to hit the fan. More when I get back home. (Oh, I slipped an extra chapter in yesterday, Chapter 16, "Follow the Leader". You should make sure you've read it. (And left a review.))

I really appreciate folks taking the time to leave a review or a PM. Views are nice but silent and uncommunicative. Always good to hear from you.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 _Risk_

* * *

They were dozing in a mutual delirium. Deliriously happy.

Sarah's face was against Chuck's chest but hidden under her mass of golden hair, fanned out. Chuck was tracing idle figures across her shoulders, not quite half-awake, not that aware of what he was doing.

He had turned on some music — on his phone — and it was playing softly in the background. Chuck wasn't really paying attention to it until he heard, but mostly felt Sarah laugh. He caught up with the words, the music.

She is watching the detectives  
"Ooh, he's so cute"  
She is watching the detectives  
When they shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot  
They beat him up until the teardrops start  
But he can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart

Long shot at that jumping sign  
Invisible shivers running down my spine  
Cut to baby taking off her clothes  
Close-up of the sign that says "We never close"  
He snatches at you and you match his cigarette  
She pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet  
I don't know how much more of this I can take  
She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake

Sarah pressed her ear to Chuck's chest. "Well, you sure are cute - but you also definitely have a heart. And," Sarah continued, lifting the light sheet covering them, revealing herself, "it's a little late to cut to baby taking off her clothes." She looked at Chuck and they laughed together, then resumed listening to the song.

"Still, _Watching the Detectives..._ a great Elvis Costello tune, huh?" Chuck asked drowsily as the song ended.

"Yeah, is that who it is?" Chuck nodded slightly in answer to her question.

Music began again. She started kissing his chest gently, soft pecks leading up to his lips. She levered herself up and kissed him on the mouth, her kiss overwhelming. They were about to lose themselves again when Chuck jerked slightly.

Sarah pulled back. "Did I hurt you?"

Chuck shook his head, looking away from her. "No, no, I just remembered something. I...I meant to tell you at dinner...you know, before…"

Sarah eyes hooded a bit but remained warm. "What is it, Chuck?"

"Jill came to see me. She wants to hire me, wants me to come up with dirt on Foxworth."

"The guy who was…"

"Yeah, that guy, the FARMA CEO. I got the impression that she's gotten herself into a jam. But I didn't take the case…"

Sarah opened her eyes fully. "No?"

"No, but I didn't _not_ take the case. I thought it might let me help Casey and Rhonda with their case. I wanted to talk to you about what I should do. And I wanted to do that before...But then you answered the door in that dress and I lost all capacity for rationality, for coherent thought…"

Sarah smiled and leaned in to kiss the end of his nose. "It's ok, Chuck. I admit I intended your full discomposition…"

He put his hand behind her head and pulled her to him, imitating her kiss by kissing her nose. "Not to be confused with my full decomposition…?"

"Definitely not. I'm all for _Detective, Discomposed,_ all against _Detective, Decomposed._ No filing my nails while they're dragging the lake, Chuck." She fake-punched his chin as she pulled her lips to one side of her face. "So, what do you think about Jill's request?"

Chuck frowned. "I honestly have no interest in helping her. She's in a jam, as I said, but it's of her own making, the result of her own choices. I owe her nothing. But I do wonder if this might give me access to more about FARMA, to things Casey and Rhonda can't get at."

"But how much can Jill really tell you? Isn't Foxworth her client - among other things."

Chuck snickered, shaking his head. "Yes, but Jill's all about Jill. The law is a means, not an end for her. She might bend it - no, she would bend it - if she thought it would help her, tell me things that legally she shouldn't, hoping I can make the jam go away and hoping I will be mum after it does."

Chuck's frown deepened. "Frankly, I just don't want to spend more time around Jill, learn more about her and Foxworth and Bryce."

"Speaking of Bryce," Sarah began cautiously, "Ellie told me a little about him, about you knowing him at college, about what happened there. I've seen a bit of the tension between you two. I take it that the tension is not all Jill. Was Bryce part of the story at Stanford?"

Chuck's phone rang as if to answer her question, ending They Might Be Giants' _She was a Hotel Detective._ Chuck reached for the phone. "Huh. It's Alex." Sarah nodded. He punched the screen with his thumb. "Hey, Alex."

ooOoo

Sarah watched Chuck listening. She could hear that the voice was Alex's, but could not make out many words. Alex's tone sounded anxious.

"Okay, Alex. Tell Rhonda to drop a GPS pin. I am on my way…"

Sarah grabbed Chuck's shoulder and pointed at herself. "Check that, Sarah and I are on the way."

"What's wrong, Chuck?"

"Casey was supposed to be running an errand last night. I was at Morgan's putt-putt course and Alex mentioned Casey was a little late. I didn't think anything of it. But now Rhonda's been searching. They found his car on a road out in the desert, but no Casey. I'm going to go meet Rhonda... _and you are coming with me_?"

Sarah gave Chuck a sharp nod. She got out of bed. Chuck groaned when she stood up. "Down, boy," she smiled, "There's more where that came from. So much more. But we have to help your friends...my friends." She added the last phrase a little tentatively, but Chuck gave her a look that told her she was right.

"Why don't we take the Porsche," Sarah offered, pulling a pair of more ordinary panties from her drawer and slipping them on. She grabbed a bra.

Chuck was pulling on his pants. "Okay. I'm always worried about taking the Vic out of town. She's an LA girl. Not much for life outside the city."

Sarah laughed as she pulled a CSUN sweatshirt over her head. Chuck noticed it. "Wait, CSUN? Northridge? You're a _Matador_?"

Sarah fluffed her hair out. "Yeah, _olé_!" She made a sweeping motion with an imaginary cape. "An education and English double major. I wrote an English honors thesis there... _Fast Talk and Femme Fatales in Noir Films._ "

"Oh, so that's why…" Chuck said, realization dawning.

"Yeah, that's why. Well, that and Dad leaving me alone at all hours as a lonely kid in motel rooms. All I had were the late- and late-late-shows to keep me company. You?"

"After Mom and Dad...I sorta just escaped into the television set and video games and comics. Other Worlds. Better worlds than this one. Until now."

Flashing him a huge smile, she pulled up one pants leg. She had grabbed her holster of knives from the closet as she and Chuck spoke, and she strapped it to her calf. When finished, she looked up. Chuck was staring at the holster as if it were an object in hypnotherapy. Sarah snapped her fingers: once, twice, three times. "Chuck? Chuck?"

He came back to reality, a sheen of perspiration visible on his forehead. He rubbed his palms on his pants legs. "Knives?"

Sarah pulled her pants leg down, concealing them. "I'll explain in the car. Can't hurt."

Chuck gulped. "The knives or the explanation?"

Sarah grabbed his arm and led him quickly out of the bedroom.

ooOoo

Chuck gave Sarah directions. His office was on the way toward the desert and he wanted to stop and get his gun.

Sarah stopped near the curb; it was late and no one was likely to object. They would only be there for a few minutes at most.

Chuck opened the office and went in. Sarah followed, looking around, a small smile of pleasure on her face. "Wow, if you had your name on frosted door glass, it'd be just like the movies, Chuck." She turned her head and saw Sasha's frog. "Well, except for the pissy frog." She ended the comment with a low chuckle.

Chuck smiled at her and the frog then opened the file cabinet and got his gun and holster. He put it on. He noticed that Sarah watched him intently, after a moment crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself. Chuck grabbed a sports coat from a hook on the wall. He threw it on over the holster and Sarah pushed him against the file cabinet, giving him a sudden, very wet but very short kiss.

He grinned at her. "Somebody likes my gun."

She licked her lips shamelessly. "Absolutely." But then her look grew immediately sober. "Okay, let's go find Rhonda and see if we can help. Are there other officers there?"

"Not yet. Rhonda's evidently looked around the immediate vicinity of the car on foot, but she's waiting there for us, hoping maybe Casey will show in the meantime."

Chuck turned off the light and they left the office. Billy Powell, enveloped in smoke, was standing by Sarah's car, giving it an extended once-over. When they stepped out, Billy turned and looked at Sarah, then looked back at the car. He whistled at one or both. Sarah shot Chuck a grin and they both started laughing.

"What?" Billy asked, throwing his cigarette on the concrete and grinding it out with his foot.

"Nothing, Billy. We were just...whistling...earlier ourselves."

Billy gave Sarah a look. "I like this one, Chuck."

Chuck was more or less sure Billy meant Sarah. "Me, too, Billy. Me, too."

"Time for her to make an honest man out of you, doncha think, Chuck? Leave the PI-ing and start the AI-ing, eh?"

Sarah had gotten in the car and started it. Chuck gave Billy a look. "Maybe you are right, Billy. But I have a couple of final cases to finish first."

As Chuck shut the door, he thought he heard Billy say something about it being bad luck to talk about final cases.

ooOoo

Darkness had collected like a pool of India ink on the desert floor. The Porsche's lights splashed the ink aside. Ahead, they saw Casey's car. But they did not see Rhonda. Her car was there, but not her. Sarah stopped the Porsche and shut it off but left the headlights on.

They got out, Chuck drawing his gun as they did. They searched both cars. Rhonda was nowhere to be found. They did find her phone, face down in the dirt a couple of yards from the car. They picked it up.

Chuck kicked at the dirt, hunching his shoulders in annoyance. "Shit. What happened?"

Sarah put her hand on one shoulder, giving it a squeeze. He slipped his gun back in the holster and started fiddling with Rhonda's phone, trying to figure out her password. He did. 'Casey': that was her password.

"Look, she sent Alex a text thirty minutes ago. 'C and S should be here soon. No sign of your dad'."

Chuck and Sarah were both staring at the screen when they heard a noise behind them. Before either could react, a voice spoke in a harsh whisper. "Turn around slowly."

They did.

Even there, even without his mirrored sunglasses, Chuck knew Perry.

Perry had a gun and an evil smile both pointed at them.

* * *

 **A/N2** Ah, baggy-suited Perry. What the hell is he doing in the desert? More next time. Chapter 18, "Stratego".

Back to work on MisEd when I return too.


	18. Stratego

**A/N1** More story. Chapters will be staccato for a while, as we move into an extended period of action.

Thanks for the reviews and PMs.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 _Stratego_

* * *

 _...From the sublime to the ridiculous..._

Chuck wasn't sure the thought was entirely apt - in the ambient light of the Porsche's headlights, Perry's gun made his baggy suit seem less clownish ( _gulp_ ) - but Chuck couldn't stop the thought from ticker-taping through his mind.

A couple of hours ago, he had been making love to Sarah Walker, been in her arms, in her bed. There, he had felt like himself. Not _again_ , but _for the first time._ The lingering demoralization from his parents' death, from Stanford, the strange nervy stasis he had been in for years, playing detective: he felt himself liberating from it, a cicada colorful from its seventeen-year shell, dull and imprisoning.

And, now, _this,_ Perry-and-a-gun. _Shit._

He had those thoughts, followed by a brainstorm - a flash of lightning and bass of thunder: he understood Monroe's AI program. It just came to him. But he had no time to consider it; he had more pressing issues.

Sarah stood beside him, her hands up. She seemed oddly calm, as if the situation had slowed, not hastened, her heart rate. He could see her regarding Perry, thinking. Chuck thought of her knives and became discordantly excited, the two sources of excitement not making much sense together.

There was a sound of music: the Teddy Bears' _Cobra Style_. Perry was making music. Or, rather, his phone was. His phone was ringing. _The Teddy Bears? What the hell?_ Chuck thought of the video and imagined Perry wearing a Teddy Bear head. He grinned without realizing it.

"What's so damn funny, Dick?" Angry Perry.

Sarah giggled. Perry got angrier.

"He's also tall and curly…" Sarah added, upping the ante.

"Shut it, blondie."

Sarah tried unsuccessfully to smother her giggles.

Perry finally answered his phone, ending the _Cobra Style_. Sarah glanced at Chuck from the corner of her eye, still fighting back a laugh. But he could also see that she was poised to strike, looking for an opening.

Chuck felt the weight of his gun against his side. But it was beneath his jacket and it would take time to get to it. Risky. The same was true of Sarah's knives. Chuck reckoned she was fast (she was amazing at everything), but Perry's gun was in his hand, his finger beside the trigger, ready.

"Perry here. Speak." Perry kept the gun on Chuck and Sarah as he listened to his phone.

"So, they are dead? Both of them?" Perry listened more closely but kept his eyes moving from Chuck to Sarah.

"Not supposed to go down that way, but go ahead, do as we planned. The timetable will have to accelerate."

It took Chuck a moment to process Perry's words. In his head, he was still hearing the Teddy Bears. _Oh, God! No. No. Casey! Rhonda!_ He glanced at Sarah. She had paled.

Perry ended his call. He made another. "Come to me. I'm at the cops' cars. I've got two new players here."

Chuck's mind seized up: he couldn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it. No. _It could not be_. He heard Sarah whisper his name, gently. Perry, phone now down, pointed the gun at her.

"Shut up."

They stood there like that, Chuck and Sarah, in utter disbelief. The moment seemed to stretch on and on, out past all temporal markers, out into eternity. _No!_

ooOoo

Sarah could feel Chuck's misery like a body blow. It added to her own. She did not know Casey and Rhonda well at all, but they had been terrific. Rhonda had been kind to Sarah, and it was in part because of Rhonda's words that Sarah had decided it was time to make a commitment to Chuck, to make love to Chuck.

Gradually, Sarah could sense that Chuck's misery transposing into anger, heading toward rage. She stepped toward Perry, subtly inserting herself into Chuck's straight path to him.

"Who do you really work for, Perry? You may be CIA, but you are in it, not of it. Someone else is pulling your string, making you walk and talk - who is it?"

Perry sneered at Sarah. "You're brave, I'll give you that. You might have had a Company future, you know? Instead of wiping kids' asses…"

Sarah let the remark blow to her and past her like a dead leaf, giving it no more attention. Her dad had taught her how to remain in control, on top of herself, and although she had relaxed those disciplines, they were still available to her. _The calmest person in the moment usually wins. Don't feel, don't react. Just breathe. Don't try to plan, let your mind relax. Inspiration can't find a way in if you are clenched tight._ Her dad's words. Sometimes he sounded like a teacher in a karate movie.

 _Calm center. Find your calm center._

Sarah could tell that Perry was expecting something. Then she heard it. An engine. Low. Louder. Louder. Loud. An old military truck with a cargo cover, all olive drab, at least as far as Sarah could tell, gunned toward them. It came to a stop in a self-made sandstorm and a man got out, walking into the beams of the truck's headlights. He was wearing khaki pants and a beaten leather jacket over a light colored t-shirt. He had a pair of sunglasses pushed up on his head.

"Hey, Perry." The man said, speaking in a normal tone of voice that sounded like a shout against the fierce whispers of Perry.

Perry did not turn. "Hey, Shaw. Two more."

Waving the gun toward the covered rear of the truck, Perry forced Sarah and Chuck to move. Sarah saw Chuck stumble. She wanted to touch him, hold him. Shaw walked ahead of them and pulled the gate of the truck down.

As Sarah's eyes adjusted back to the darkness after the headlights of the truck, she could see two bodies in the back. Casey. Rhonda. Sarah heard Chuck release a low moan; he saw it too.

Sarah could feel Shaw staring at her, felt him purposely brush against her. "Get in the truck." She did, seething.

Perry was covering them with his gun. Sarah climbed up into the bed of the truck. She turned quickly to Chuck and extended her hand, not so much because he needed help getting in as to force him to focus on her and not on Shaw and Perry and his anger.

He took her hand - Shaw guffawed - and she pulled him in. Shaw shut the gate. Perry stepped up to it his gun on Chuck. "Give me your gun, Dick, and do it carefully." Chuck took out his gun, holding it in a pinch between his thumb and forefinger, and he handed it to Shaw.

"Don't even think about jumping out of here. I will know and I will have Shaw turn this truck around and run you down. Do you understand?"

Chuck was white, even in the dark, staring at Casey and Rhonda. Sarah nodded. "We understand." Perry made them surrender their phones and walked away, around the truck on the passenger side.

Shaw took another long look at Sarah, and shook his head, reacting to some mental image. Sarah felt the knives on her calf and longed to get to one.

Shaw went around the truck and got in. He put it in gear and they pulled away. Sarah turned immediately to Casey and Rhonda. She felt like she might vomit.

The truck lurched and Sarah lost her balance. She stepped back, overcompensated, and fell forward, landing on Rhonda's body.

Warm. Breathing. Not Rhonda's body. Rhonda.

"Chuck!" Sarah scrambled onto all fours. "Chuck, she's alive!" Chuck immediate knelt beside Casey.

After a moment of checking: "Casey is too! Thank god!" Sarah reached out and Chuck took her hand and then stayed that way for a moment, their hands joined above the side-by-side unconscious forms.

Chuck: "But wait a minute. If they are alive, who's dead?" Chuck stared at Sarah and she stared back.

"Oh, no. Sasha's parents! The Monroes!"

The truck lurched again and they were thrown apart.

ooOoo

Chuck felt a new panic replace the relief for Casey and Rhonda. But he knew he could do nothing for the Monroes immediately.

He pushed himself back up and checked Casey. He had a large lump on his head, and the skin had been broken. There was quite a bit of blood, as there always was with a head injury, but the wound was not deep. A concussion was the more serious possibility. Chuck grabbed one of Casey's hands, rubbed it, and spoke in sing-song.

"C'mon, Casey. Casey-baby, I'm feeling _ladyfeelings_ here, Casey-baby, all worried about little ol' you. Wakey, wakey and tell me to go straight to hell-i-bye."

Sarah had looked Rhonda over. She had a similar injury. "I think she'll be okay, Chuck."

Chuck's anger returned. "I'm going to stop this damn truck, Sarah." He put Casey's hand down and stood up as far as he could. He shucked off his sports coat.

"I wasn't entirely out of it when they put us in here. I'm pretty sure I can climb on the outside of this cargo cover and work my way toward the cabin…"

"But Chuck, they've got guns. They'll just shoot you if you don't fall. Don't do it. They don't know I have my knives. We could surprise them when we stop. We might have a decent chance if we can get Casey and Rhonda awake by then." She made herself smile, knowing Chuck was dead serious about his plan but hoping to dissuade him with humor. "I know how much you want to _Indy_ , but...really?"

His determined, stony face cracked and he smiled, dropped his head. "Okay. Okay, Marion. So we do it your way."

He leaned down again and started smacking Casey's face lightly. With each smack, he said one word. Smack. "Morgan!" Smack. "Morgan!" Smack…

"Hit me again, Bartowski, and I'll pull your little friend's beard off him like a peel off a kiwi."

"Oh, hey, Case. Good to have you back. And Alex would not approve."

Casey pushed himself up, shaking his head gingerly. The truck was rocking and rolling, and so he had to keep putting out one hand or the other to stay in his seated posture. Each movement elicited a groan.

Sarah had been working to wake Rhonda, and she was now showing signs of coming to. "Rhonda, come on. It's Sarah. Sarah and Chuck. We found you. Sort of."

Rhonda opened her eyes. "Hey," she said tentatively, her hand moving to the lump on her head automatically, "what's going on?" Sarah quickly explained.

When she finished, Chuck put his hand on Casey's shoulder. "What are you doing out here, Casey?"

He looked up at Chuck. "I got an anonymous tip. A call. Something fishy at FARMA. I went by and saw Perry and the other guy leave the building. I followed them. They went to a warehouse, stayed a long time. Hours. I waited. Eventually, they came out but left their car. Took this truck and headed out into the desert. I followed but didn't think they knew. But I guess I'm not exactly a spy. The truck stopped but evidently, Perry had jumped out. When I stopped, Perry got the jump on me. Made me get out and pistol-whipped me, the bastard. Must've hit me more than once. I assume he also got Rhonda. I don't know what they are doing out here."

With that, Casey turned to Rhonda and wrapped her in his long, heavy arms. "Sorry, sweetheart, to get you into this."

"Hey, Casey, I'm a cop too. Your _partner_. We are supposed to run the same risks - _sweetheart_." The way she said the last word made it clear that the word was new between them, both for Casey and for her. She smiled at him and he smiled back.

"So, do we have a plan?"

Chuck nodded. "We are going to attack them when they stop and try to unload us. You two need to pretend to still be unconscious."

Casey nodded, clearly considering the plan, such as it was. "Okay, but they have guns. We ain't got any weapons.

Chuck looked at Sarah. She pulled up her pants leg, displaying the cache of knives.

Casey let out a low whistle over Rhonda's surprised chuckled, and then he turned to Chuck. "I told you, numbnuts. She's the one."

ooOoo

Casey was talking low to Chuck, finishing the details of the plan. Sarah noticed Rhonda looking at her. "What is it?"

"Well, forgive me this, but, judging from the glow I can see in the dark, I'm guessing 'numbnuts' over there ain't so numb?"

Sarah felt her blush burn in the dark. She said nothing, but she shook her head hard. Rhonda chuckled again.

But then Sarah remembered Perry's words. Dead. The Monroes.

She took a breath and got Chuck and Casey's attention. She explained to Casey and Rhonda - Sasha, the case, everything, Chuck adding details - as the truck bounced through the dark desert.

* * *

 **A/N2** Tune in next time as our intrepid heroes face the terrible twosome of Perry and Shaw. (There had to be a universe in which they were working together, right?) Chapter 19, "Checkers".

Thoughts? Reactions?

Nice to be back in the relative warmth of Bama after my jaunt to frigid Milwaukee. New MisEd chapter soon, probably Tuesday.


	19. Checkers

**A/N1** More story. More comes into focus.

Don't own _Chuck._ (I write this so often it starts to seem suspicious, even to me, like maybe I do. But I don't. - There, I did it again.)

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER NINETEEN

 _Checkers_

* * *

They were ready. Chuck was holding Sarah's hand, seated on the floor of the truck beside her. Casey's arm was around Rhonda's shoulders, holding her close. They were quiet and tense. They knew that when the truck stopped they would be in a fight for their lives.

Casey snorted with laughter, killing the quiet. Three heads turned toward him. "Just thinking. One hell of a double date, Bartowski."

Chuck gave a resigned snicker and glanced at Sarah. "Never say I don't show my best girl a good time…"

Sarah gave him one of those smiles of hers, and it was visible in the dark, palpable in his whole body. She leaned into him, pressing her chest against his arm and shoulder. She put her lips next to his ear and she whispered, only just audibly: "I love you, Chuck Bartowski. I would not want to be anywhere else with anyone else. You're my guy."

Chuck pulled back and stared into her eyes, his movement a question. She nodded, her smile now containing an admission of vulnerability and exposure. Chuck leaned into her and kissed her smile gently, feeling her kiss him back just as gently. Then he moved his lips to her ear. "I love you too, Sarah. Absolutely." She put her arms around him, hugged him and he hugged her back.

ooOoo

Sarah hugged Chuck with her eyes closed. When she opened them, still hugging him, she saw Rhonda grinning at her. Rhonda whispered hoarsely, "Truck's slowing down. So, if you two are done playing Password, we should get ready."

Casey caught Sarah's eyes and actually smiled at her too. He gave her a herky-jerky thumbs up - obviously not a familiar gesture. Then he grunted approvingly. That seemed more familiar and comfortable. She smiled at him and felt a spike of pleasure despite their situation, despite her fears for Sasha and her parents. She prayed she was wrong in thinking that the Monroes were the victims Perry referred to, but she feared it was so. They needed to get free, get to the Monroes' place, see if they could find Sasha.

Although it had taken them some time, they had not crossed that much desert. Shaw, or whatever his name was, did not seem to be in a hurry. They were going fast enough that jumping from the truck would have been dangerous, but not so fast that they were many miles from their cars.

The truck slowed, slowed, bounced, and stopped. Casey and Rhonda stretched out on the floor, resuming their earlier posture, the one Chuck and Sarah first saw when Shaw opened the truck. Chuck knelt on both knees near the gate of the truck. Sarah sat down, her legs in front of her, one arm around her knees, her head hanging down. One hand was near the holster of knives; the other fisted the fabric of her jeans, ready to pull up the leg of her jeans to give her access.

Sarah was chanting "Perry" to herself. He seemed to be the brains of the twosome. He was also the one who had (so far) brandished a gun. Sarah's hope was that he would come to the gate, either by himself or with Shaw.

She heard a door slam. Another followed. The passenger side first: Perry. She heard his steps in the sand. Shaw seemed to be standing by the driver's side door; she heard no movement. Then Perry was at the gate, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, motioning for them to get out. Shaw came into view. He was carrying something...a shovel. He had it in one hand, hanging at his side. Perry pivoted just a bit to look at Shaw. It was time.

In one concerted motion, Sarah pulled up her pants leg with one hand, grabbed and threw a knife with the other. Her aim was true. Perry gasped. She had impaled the knife deep into the forearm of his gun hand. The gun hit the sand. As it did, Chuck got to his feet and leaped out of the truck, stretching out to his full length as he sailed across the sand. He cleared the truck bed and got all the way to Shaw.

Shaw registered the threat too late to do anything more than put the shovel's handle between himself and Chuck. Sarah lost track at that point, as she threw herself to the side, then to her feet and jumped out toward Perry. She landed and threw a kick The sand slowed her rate of rotation, and so the blow was not as heavy as she intended. Still, she contacted Perry's head. It snapped back and the flashlight fell and rolled, its light cutting across the combat.

ooOoo

Chuck managed to grab the shovel handle and to carry his momentum into Shaw. They went down with a sandy splash, the shovel's handle burying itself in Shaw's chest and knocking some of the wind out of him. Chuck punched Shaw's face a couple of times before Shaw was able to use the shovel handle to strike at Chuck, the non-blade end hitting Chuck hard over the head. But the pain only increased Chuck's anger. He hit Shaw in the face again, savagely. Shaw hit Chuck again, dazing him. Chuck felt dizzy himself.

"Stop! I have the gun!" Casey's voice. Shaw stopped. Chuck had already begun another swing and he connected hard with Shaw's mouth. Blood flowed freely from it.

"Kid! Stop!"

Chuck looked around to see Sarah ( _she's fine!_ ) standing over Perry. Perry was moaning, rolling from side to side in the sand, holding his arm, a knife sticking out of it. Rhonda had the flashlight. Casey was standing with Perry's gun.

Chuck shook his head, trying to clear it of rage and cobwebs. For a moment, he felt like Sasha's red-eyed frog, pissed to high heaven, ready to do serious damage to the Shaw guy. Chuck realized his leap from the truck had been frog-like itself. He heard Casey say: "Rhonda. Check out the cab for a first aid kit. See if our weapons and cuffs are in there. Phones too. Sarah, are you okay?" Chuck breathed in greater relief when he heard her calm _yes._

And then she was in front of him, looking into his face.

"Chuck, Chuck?" Chuck looked at her, her blue eyes flashing in the light from the flashlight. He grabbed her and kissed her in relief. He heard Casey grunt, and then punctuate the grunt with "Hell, he's fine."

Sarah ran her hands through Chuck's curls, but then pulled her lips from his. She had her hand on a spot on his head.

"Wow, that's quite a lump, Chuck. I guess you get to join the club with Casey and Rhonda."

ooOoo

As if summoned, Rhonda came running back with her hands full. She stopped at Casey's side. He took his gun and cuffs and phone from her. She handed him a small blue first aid kit. He went to Perry, whose moaning had grown less loud.

"Shut up. I'll fix you. You're lucky she's no killer. That girl can handle a knife." Casey looked toward Chuck and Sarah, a question on his face, but then looked back at Perry.

He grabbed Perry's arm and Perry screamed as Casey pulled the knife free. Rhonda cuffed Shaw and wiped the blood from his face. She went to Casey and got some gauze from the first aid kit. She handed Shaw the gauze to put against his lip. Chuck burst Shaw's lip in several places. The gauze began quickly to redden. Shaw shot Chuck a threatening look but could do nothing about it.

Casey finished with Perry and cuffed him too. Perry was still moaning, and Casey was getting more annoyed. "I hate it when the bad guys are babies."

Chuck and Sarah got their phones from the pile of stuff on the ground beside Rhonda. Chuck checked: no signal.

They put Perry and Shaw in the back of the truck and used a heavy rope from the floor of the cab to bind their hands and feet. Rhonda asked about Perry. Casey rolled his eyes. "He'll keep bleeding, but not to death, dammit." Rhonda picked up Chuck's gun and gave it to him. He put it in the empty shoulder holster.

Casey stationed Rhonda as a guard at the back of the truck, gun in hand, and he motioned for Sarah and Chuck to join him. They walked to the front of the truck.

About ten yards in front of the truck was a huge, irregular and shallow hole in the desert floor. Above it, anchored to heavy metal poles in each corner and once along each side (they could see it as Casey swept the flashlight around), was camouflage netting. Casey shot the beam of the flashlight down into the hole as they got to its edge. There were many, many steel drums, large, sealed, standing in close formation.

"Oh, shit. Glow-in-the-dark FARMA crap, I bet," Casey growled. He started down the steep side of the hole, slipping and sliding in the loose dirt and sand. Chuck and Sarah followed him, slipping and sliding themselves. Casey got to the first of the drums. It was tall, reaching well past Casey's waist, and wide in diameter. It was sealed with a handled, metal ring. The seal was tight, probably airtight.

Casey handed Chuck the flashlight and grabbed the handle. He pulled it toward him with a mighty heave. It began to open, pulling away from the mouth of the drum. It took a couple of similar heaves for Casey to get the ring handle all the way back and then to remove the ring from the mouth of the drum. Sarah retrieved one of her knives and handed it to Casey. He used it to pry at the mouth of the drum.

The air seal broke with a strange, almost human sigh. Casey pulled the lid off and the stench smacked all three of them like a warm, greasy palm. Chuck shone the flashlight into the drum and there, in a pool of thick, greenish liquid, was the decomposing face of a corpse. The smell was foul past bearing - chemical and organic, sweet and putrid and poisonous all at once. Chuck gagged and heard Sarah and Casey gagging too. They all backed away from the drum.

"Sweet Jesus! I did not expect that. Lord!" Casey stomped his feet, shaking his head, trying to loosen the grip of the horror he'd just seen. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…"

After a moment, he pulled himself together. "Okay, we need a team here. I ain't prying another of these chem Spam drums open. Someone else can be the checker. What I just saw is gonna leave a damn scar." Casey scrambled up the side of the hole. Chuck and Sarah followed.

"You two drive. I'll get in the back with these two assholes - and Rhonda!" Casey half-ran to the back of the truck. Chuck jumped up into the driver's seat. Sarah had her phone out.

"Shit, Chuck. No reception. Too far into the desert, I guess." Chuck nodded, started the truck. Casey slapped the back of the cab. He and Rhonda were ready. Chuck swung the truck around and started back toward their cars. Sarah slid over the seat to him and put her arms around him. Neither spoke. She kissed his ear and put her head on his shoulder. He pushed the accelerator down and the truck lurched into motion.

ooOoo

Sarah's phone finally had a signal. She checked a site for local news. She flinched. Chuck, fearing the worst, asked: "What is it, Sarah? Sasha? The Monroes?"

"No, Chuck. Nothing about them here. It's a story about Police Captain Larkin and his guest, Jill Roberts. They were shot in his house earlier today. Bryce is dead. Jill is in the ICU. They aren't sure she's going to make it."

She looked up, her eyes huge. "And, Chuck, you are wanted for questioning, as a Person of Interest…"

* * *

 **A/N2** Ummm...so...yeah. Twisting Cobra Style. More next time, Chapter 20, "I Spy".


	20. I Spy

**A/N1** Another of the current run of staccato chapters. This one is quite short but quite important, and it is my modest Valentine's Day gift to my readers. Love is in the air - even in the desert.

The final chapters will lengthen out; just a few more to go.

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TWENTY

 _I Spy_

* * *

Chuck stared at Sarah for a long second before remembering to steer the truck.

"Really, I am a POI?" He shook his head, sighing ruefully. "Every PI's rite of passage, I guess..."

"There's nothing much here, Chuck, other than what I said, and a comment about you knowing both the victims."

"Well, that's true. But why would they suspect me?"

"Haven't you been following Jill around, tailing her?"

Chuck nodded, spinning the large steering wheel to avoid a dip in the sand and throwing Sarah more fully up against him. "Yes, you know I have. But I was doing that for Casey."

"I know, but were you part of any official investigation?"

Chuck shook his head. "No, but still…"

"Chuck, do you think someone might have tailed you when you were tailing Jill? Perry maybe, or that Shaw guy?"

Chuck pursed his lips. "I was on the lookout for that dark SUV, the Escalade, from the time I first saw it. But it could have been there before I saw it. And I guess that Shaw guy…" Chuck's voice got gravelly, "...well, I have no idea what car he drives. I wasn't watching for anyone but Perry." He pursed his lips again, this time twisting them to the other side of his face. Sarah realized the dark had turned grey: dawn was coming.

"Still," Chuck continued, "I think I would have noticed, probably, maybe…I guess I never thought I needed to play _I Spy_ for spies..."

"Chuck, sweetheart, don't take this the wrong way, but I tailed you tailing Jill, and you never noticed."

"Touché. But you are good, really good, at everything." He waggled his eyebrows at her.

Sarah laughed, glancing away. "Thanks, but someone might have tailed you, might have photographs of you following Jill around. Someone might be able to make this difficult for you. Who knows what they may have found at the scene…"

"Wait, you take Perry to have been talking about Bryce and Jill, not the Monroes?"

"I do. I don't understand, but I think that's the assumption we should be operating under. In fact, I am going to call the Monroes now."

Sarah made the call, putting it on speaker. Ringing. More ringing. No answer.

"Okay, that's not good, but I still think we should assume Perry was talking about Bryce and Jill. Whoever did it thought they were both dead, but was wrong. Jill is still alive."

"Perry and the person he was talking to clearly had a plan. Do you think it involved framing me? Did they, do they, think they can make that stick?"

"Maybe they don't care, ultimately, maybe the point is to get you off the game board."

"The game board?"

Sarah nodded. "Yeah, Chuck, we've been players in a game - one game I now think, not two, since we know that Perry and Shaw are connected to FARMA somehow - and I suspect you are in the way of the endgame they have planned."

Chuck nodded slowly, considering Sarah's words. "Okay, that sounds...right, dammit. But I am not off the board, yet. And they don't know I have my _ninjagarten_ teacher at my side. Well, I guess Perry and Shaw do, but we are going to take them off the board…"

Sarah kissed Chuck's cheek. "Yes, Chuck, I am by your side. That's my favorite place, although I admit that being under you and on top of you also have strong attractions." She saw him blush in the first blush of dawn. "But speaking of taking Perry and Shaw off the board - you were a little _angry_ with Shaw back there. Are you okay?"

Chuck dipped his head, sheepishly. "Yeah, that's not me, not normally. But I thought they'd killed Casey and Rhonda - and, Sarah, I love those two. Casey, I mean, we never, ever show it to each other, but we are best friends. He's my best friend in the world other than Morgan. He's a big reason I am making it at all. He supports me, has supported me, even as he torments me.

"I think some days I would have just locked my office and sat there, staring at the walls, if he hadn't come by, or called, or given me work. And Rhonda, well, you've met her. She's got a big heart and she loves that big lunatic, and I love her for both of those…" Chuck swallowed hard. "And then I thought Perry and Shaw killed the Monroes, maybe hurt Sasha or took her...And I saw the way that Shaw guy looked at you, pushed himself against you…"

"I didn't realize you saw that, Chuck."

"I did. And I know you are your own woman and frankly more capable of protecting yourself than I am of myself, but," Chuck's voice took on conviction and he lifted his head, "as long as I breathe, Sarah, I will try to protect you…"

"And be a bit jealous?" She turned a smile on him.

He grew sheepish again. "A bit, a skoosh, a smidgen…"

She bounced him with her shoulder. "Don't feel bad about it, Chuck. I know you are past her but I admit I am jealous of Jill, a bit, a skoosh, a smidgen...I hate to admit that, especially with her in ICU."

"Yeah…" Chuck was silent a minute. "Let's hope she makes it, for all sorts of reasons, but, you know, mostly so she makes it."

He glanced at Sarah. "I just got really angry. I guess I felt helpless, sort of like I felt when my parents...you know, and again during the whole debacle at Stanford. Like events were washing over me with no possibility of resistance. I guess I have probably needed to confess to that feeling for a long time, just in order to get past it. But you, Sarah...I hope you know. You are a game-changer, _the_ game-changer for me."

Grinning at him and taking his free hand, she leaned in. "And what game would that be, Detective Bartowski?"

"Ummm. Miss Walker, that would be the game of _Life._ "

"Chuck! Is that a proposal?" Her grin grew.

Chuck returned her grin. "Well, given the mess we are currently in, let's just say it was _not not a proposal_." He eyed her with nervous expectation.

"Okay...And let's just say that I am _not not accepting_ …" She looked into his eyes; he looked back. Then they each glanced away.

They sat for a moment in silence, both reckoning with what they had not not said, smiling.

ooOoo

Finally, Sarah broke the silence. "I've been thinking, Chuck. You know I have money. You know how I got it. When this mess is over, what would you say to taking that money and starting the AI company I know you've dreamed of."

When he looked at her, she continued: "Ellie told me a while back. You could do the work you were meant to do, help developmentally challenged kids. That sounds like a good thing, Chuck, and I believe in you. I know you'll succeed. I know you'll make kids' lives better. We can put the money to work doing good, redeem it, so to speak."

Chuck studied the desert through the window and Sarah held her breath. All this was moving fast, but it felt so right to her - like she had finally found her place in the world, the man she was going to share her life with, dream awake with. She wanted to start her dream, his dream, their dream. Although she had not been in hiding for years as she knew Chuck had, hiding himself away in the professional shadows of his investigative world, she had been hidden from feelings, from trusting, from sharing herself. She was ready. She thought he was ready.

"That...that would be great, Sarah. If you are sure. I am sure. Sure of you. Surer than I have ever been of anything in my life. Absolutely sure. I think Ellie was right. She told me we would be perfect for each other."

"Smart woman, that Ellie," Sarah noted. "We should listen to her, I think."

"Me too, Sarah, me too. So, when we get out of this mess?"

"When we get out of this mess, then _us,_ Chuck."

ooOoo

Chuck stopped the truck next to the three cars. The sun was now above the horizon. Chuck and Sarah had no more than gotten out when Casey raced around the truck. "Chuck, Chuck!" Casey was waving his phone, "do you know?"

Chuck nodded. "Larkin and Jill - me?"

Casey nodded. "Damn, kid, what the hell is going on?"

"I haven't put all the details together, yet," Chuck said, as Casey and Sarah looked at him, "but I am getting the big picture into focus. There's something I haven't told you. About the Monroes, about Matthew Monroe's AI programming…"

"What about it," Casey demanded.

"I recognized what he was doing. Just a while ago, when Perry jumped us. Oddly enough, it has features in common with my dad's work, it just took me a minute, so to speak, to see it…"

"Your dad, Chuck?" Sarah studied his face. "You dad was a computer guy too?"

"Yeah," Chuck grinned, "I'm a _chip_ off the old block." Sarah and Casey both groaned. "Sorry, too early for puns, or too late?" Chuck sobered. "Anyway, here's what I figured out…" Chuck started explaining, quickly.

* * *

 **A/N2** So, what is going on? We are about to find out, most of it, anyway. Tune in next time for Chapter 21, "Frogger".

My time with you is growing short. How about sharing a reaction?

Zettel


	21. Frogger

**A/N1** Ah, explanations. Still having lighthearted fun with this one, and so with the explanations too. If you are expecting hard science I have one word for you: _Chuck._ If you are expecting steel-trap logic, I have three words for you: _The Big Sleep._

And, yes, that was one eventful Sunday (and the wee hours of Monday). Welcome to daylight Monday.

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 _Frogger_

* * *

Monday, April 3, a little after dawn

* * *

"So, my dad worked at a place called Wilmore Laboratories…"

"Stop, kid," Casey said, his hand in the air, cutting off Chuck's explanation. "Let's get Rhonda out here too. I get the feeling computer mumbo-jumbo's coming, and I won't be able to explain it to her. We all need to know."

Chuck nodded. Casey jogged around the truck. A minute later, Perry and Shaw trudged by, cuffed. Perry was a walking flag of surrender, lily-white and sagging. Shaw glared at Chuck as he went by. Chuck ignored him.

Casey stuffed each of them into the back of his car. He had a standard police partition between the front and rear seats. After shutting them in, Casey opened the driver's door and fiddled with the sound system. All at once, country music was blaring, the rin-tin-tin, ratta-tat-tat of a banjo. Casey shut the door and rejoined the group, although the music, muted, could still be heard. "Rhonda read 'em their Mirandas on the way. I am currently culturally enriching them. They won't hear us."

Chuck smacked at his ears, frowning. "What the hell was that, Casey?'

Rhonda sighed. "That, folks, was Casey's prized _The Favorites of Hee Haw…_ " she paused for a second, building expectation, "... _Vol. 2._ Casey may be the only person on the planet who owns Vol. 2." She dropped her shoulders in defeat. "Can't get him to listen to anything remotely decent. I tried a bunch of stuff, including The Fugees, Lauryn Hill - who doesn't like _The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill?_ No luck. Eventually, I even tried Bob Marley - I mean, really, who doesn't like Bob Marley? No luck."

Casey looked embarrassed. Rhonda stuck her left hand in the air, spreading her fingers so that her naked ring finger was isolated, and, wiggling it in the air, she started singing.

 _I don't wanna wait in vain for your love,  
_ _I don't wanna wait in vain for your love,  
_ ' _Cause if summer is here,  
_ _I'm still waiting there…_

She let the song trail off. Casey kicked at the sand, head down. Rhonda gave Chuck and Sarah a small, shrugging smirk: "See, no luck." Chuck and Sarah traded a significant look, smiling at each other and their shared thought.

Casey broke the resulting silence just after it started, sounding slightly desperate. "So, Chuck, you were saying?"

Chuck looked at Rhonda. She motioned for him to go on.

"So, my dad worked at a place called Wilmore Laboratories. I don't really remember it. We weren't allowed to visit him there, and I was little. Some kind of government-sponsored project. Ellie's told me most of this. But Dad was working on an AI program. He hoped to make it possible to transfer information stored on a computer into the human brain - but even more, he wanted it to be accessible, usable the way the person's own memories, even skills, were usable. More or less anyway.

"I snuck into his home lab one day and he had left his computer up and on. I thought the design on the screen was the logo for a video game. I punched the button and watched. I saw lots of pictures that made no sense as a collection, then it ended. Dad came in and got really upset with me. I started to cry. But when he saw that I was okay, he calmed down.

"I asked him what I had seen and he said it was the interface for his new program, the way that information got downloaded into the brain. But he said it didn't really work. They'd tried it at Wilmore, but the people who had downloaded it, the volunteers, had been unable to store the information for any length of time. It was there initially but then it vanished. Sometimes the volunteers had psychotic episodes. I wondered why it hadn't worked for me at all. He gave me a funny look and said that I was special. I still don't quite know what he meant by that…"

Sarah grabbed Chuck's hand. "I do."

He grinned at her. "Dad told me that he thought the problem he was having with the volunteers was like the problem medical doctors have with transplant patients. In order to keep them from rejecting the transplant, doctors have to use drugs - I now know they are immunosuppressive drugs, anti-rejection drugs, but that was a big word for a kid - and usually, the transplant patient is on them for a long time. The drugs keep the body from attacking the new organ as alien, an invader.

Rhonda jumped in. "Right, my aunt took them for a long time after her kidney transplant."

"Exactly. Dad said he needed something like that for the mind, something that would allow the information 'transplanted' to be accepted by the mind as its own, not as alien…He also said it was a stumper of a problem because it involved a mind/body problem - unlike, say, a kidney transplant, which is a body/body problem..."

Chuck stopped and bit his lower lip. "I tell you all this because I take it there has to be a connection between Perry and Shaw, and FARMA, and the Monroes. Matthew's program is an upgrade, a re-imagining of my dad's. That's what I finally figured out.

"You see, I found Dad's, years after his death, some on one of his old computers, some in old files. I studied it for a long time. Working on it, coming slowly to understand it, is what got me deeply interested in computers, what got me a scholarship to Stanford. Got me interested in AI, although I kept Dad's specific program to myself. I don't know the origin of Monroe's work but it shares the DNA, so to speak, of Dad's.

"Here's what I am thinking. I wonder if FARMA is working on some kind of psychoactive drug, a kind of mental 'immunosuppressant', to allow for the successful implantation, the transplant, of information? I wonder if it is FARMA, Foxworth, I guess, who is behind Perry and Shaw? I wonder if Matthew Monroe ran into the same problem Dad did? I wonder if FARMA has the programming or something like it and ran into it too?" No one spoke.

"Look, I know I am connecting dots pretty freely, and there are lots of dots, including some big ones, not connected yet - but it's a place to start. We need to see if we can find the Monroes. We know Perry and Shaw weren't working alone. Someone else was on the phone with Perry. Perry called Shaw after he ended the earlier call…"

Sarah nodded. "That's true."

Casey's jaw grew firm. "It's a start, kid. Rhonda and I'll take these clowns - oh, sorry, kid - to the station. We'll also see what we can do about the POI thing. Until we can get it changed, you need to keep your head down. Jessup would be happy to take a shot at you, you know. We'll call in what we found out here as we drive to the city. We need to know who was in that drum, and if anyone is in the others." Casey visibly shuddered.

"Be sure to keep in contact. And be careful. This is spook shit, Chuck, and that shit goes sideways fast. Call me once you find the Monroes. Also, if there is _any_ sign of trouble, back off, and call me. I need to talk to the acting Captain, whoever that is." He turned to Rhonda but she held out her arms, palms up: she didn't know.

Casey looked back at Chuck and Sarah. "Call me, Chuck," Casey said again, insistently. "Take care of him, Sarah. And yourself. We're all having a long talk when this is over."

Chuck and Sarah both nodded. Chuck climbed in the passenger side of the Porsche and Sarah got behind the wheel. They headed back to LA.

ooOoo

Sarah turned the corner to the Monroes' street and slowed. There was a parking spot available. They were more than a block away. From where they were parked, they could not tell much of anything about the house. Nothing seemed out of place. A sedate neighborhood on a mid-Monday morning.

"Chuck!" Sarah hissed. A large panel truck, white, passed them. It went down the street, slowed in front of the Monroes' just a bit (the brake lights flashed for a second), then went on, turning right. A couple of minutes later, the same truck passed them again, slowed again, went on.

"C'mon, Chuck! If we run, we can get to the house before the truck circles around again."

They got out and sprinted down the sidewalk of the first block. Sarah angled toward the backyard of the first house on the Monroe's block. Chuck caught up and took the lead. He'd been back there before. A moment later, they were at the back of the Monroes, after climbing the fence. Chuck stood aside. Sarah knocked on the door. They were both panting.

The door opened and there stood Virginia Monroe. Chuck had only seen her in pictures and they did not do her justice. She was tall, almost as tall as Sarah, and almost as lovely. She had long, straight black hair and dark blue eyes. In person, she even looked a bit like Sarah.

"Miss Walker?" Virginia's hand slipped almost invisibly around to her back.

"Don't, Virginia. We are here to help. There is panel truck cruising outside and we have reason to think you are in danger."

Virginia stood stock-still for a second, thinking, then she grabbed Sarah's hand and pulled her inside. Chuck followed.

Virginia turned and walked to the doorway leading down to the basement. "Matthew, trouble!" She turned. "Stay here." Virginia went into the other room. She came back with Sasha holding her hand.

Virginia's manner was different with the girl beside her. Calmer and softer. "Sasha, look who came to take you for an outing, your favorite teacher, Miss Walker and…"

"Mr. Chuck!" Sasha yelled. She ran to Sarah and hugged her legs. Sarah mussed the little girl's hair with her hand. "Hey, Sasha!" Sasha grinned up at Sarah then ran and hugged Chuck's legs. "How's my mad frog, Mr. Chuck?"

"He glares at me every day. FWA - Frog With Attitude."

Chuck stooped down to talk with Sasha, telling her about where the frog was in his office. Sarah spoke in hushed whispers to Virginia. Matthew came bounding up the stairs. He was a little taller than Chuck, maybe even lankier. He stopped when he saw Chuck and Sarah.

"What's going on?"

Virginia pulled Matthew toward her and began to talk to him. After a moment, he bent down beside Sasha.

"Sasha, why don't you go with Mr. Chuck and Miss Walker? They're going to take you for a ride. We will catch up with you later."

The little girl nodded. "Okay, Daddy. See you soon." Chuck noticed that Matthew had a thumb drive in his hand.

"Is that _it_?" Chuck asked.

Matthew gave him a blank look.

"The AI program. My name is Chuck - Chuck _Bartowski_."

Matthew's eyes widened. He turned to his wife; Virginia had gone to peek out the front window and just come back.

"The truck went around again. Something's brewing. They didn't see you two?" Her voice was flat, economical.

Both Chuck and Sarah shook their heads. "Good, take Sasha and keep her safe, please. We will deal with the...trouble." Virginia gave Sarah a gentle push. "Take her, go. I trust you, Miss Walker. I have no idea how you two got mixed up in this, but my little girl's a good judge of character, like her dad." Virginia smiled at Matthew, who was tying Sasha's tiny pink Chuck Taylors.

"Have fun, little one," Matthew whispered to Sasha as he stood up. He handed Chuck the thumb drive while looking at Virginia. She gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod. "Keep this safe too, _Bartowski._ But stomp on it before you let anyone take it. Now, go. I will unlock the fence from inside."

Chuck picked up Sasha. He was pretty sure that behind him he heard Virginia tell Matthew to get his tranq gun.

A moment later, Chuck had Sasha in his arms and he was fast-walking through the backyard and through the gate in the fence. Sarah, ahead of him, scanned the neighborhood, the street. She motioned for them to run. "Hey, Sasha," Chuck said, breaking into a lope, "hang on tight." He sped into a run at that point. He felt Sasha's arms tighten around his neck.

Sasha giggled into Chuck's cheek. "Wooosh! We're going _fast_ , Mr. Chuck!"

They got to the car and got inside before the panel truck came around again.

"Damn," Sarah said, then, noticing Sasha's wide eyes, "Um, darn! No child seat."

Chuck put Sasha in the Porsche's small backseat and clicked the seat belt around her. "Well, I guess we will have to break the law. The Large Mart next to the Buy More Isn't far. Go there and I can run inside and get a car seat."

Sarah started the car. "Hey, Miss Walker, this sure is a nice car…" Sasha offered.

"Thanks, cutie."

"Are we leaving because of the bad men?"

Sarah maneuvered the Porsche out of the parking spot and turned left at the intersection. Still no panel truck.

"What bad men, Sasha?"

"The ones who wear glasses that see the wrong way."

"What?" Sarah asked.

"She means _mirrored_ , Sarah. When did you see the bad men, Sasha?"

"This morning. Before Mommy and Daddy got up. I saw them walk by the house."

Chuck reached back and patted Sasha's cheek, pink from the run in Chuck's arm. "Don't worry, the bad men aren't going to bother you."

"Mommy tells me not to talk about them, but we left our other house because of the bad men."

Sasha seemed satisfied. She sat back in the seat.

"What did Matthew give you, Chuck?"

"I think it's the program. If I were him, I'd have wiped the machine in the basement. This," Chuck unfisted the thumb drive, "this would be the only copy. He knew my dad, Sarah, or knew of him. He reacted to 'Bartowski'."

Sarah squeezed Chuck's hand. "What do we do after we get the car seat?"

"Hide, at least until we hear something from somebody. I need to call Casey. After we get the car seat, head to Morgan's putt-putt course. I'd been planning to take you there…"

"Still showing your best girl a good time?"

"You know me…"

"You're a good guy, Mr. Chuck!" Sasha enthused.

"That makes it unanimous, Chuck," Sarah said as she checked the rearview mirror.

A couple of minutes later, they pulled into the Buy More parking lot. Chuck quickly got out and went inside the Large Mart. He found a car seat, got in the shortest line, waiting to pay for it. The bored woman running the register looked at the car seat. "Hey, Mister. Don't you want one in the box?"

"No," Chuck replied, willing the woman to hurry. "This is fine."

The woman gave a slow shrug of perfect existential indifference - truly she could not have cared less. She rang Chuck up, depressing each register button as if it were her last earthly deed, and he jammed the money in her when she finally gave him the total. He didn't wait for change.

He took the car seat out to the Porsche. Sarah had moved Sasha up into the driver's seat with her. Sasha was playing with the turn signal lever. Chuck got in, twisted around, and secured the seat in place. Sarah put Sasha in it and buckled her up.

Chuck shook his head, gripped by incredulity. "Suddenly, this seems an odd errand, given last night and this morning, Sarah."

She huffed good-naturedly. "Safety first, Chuck. Point me in the way of the putt-putt course."

"Putt-putt? I love putt-putt!" Sasha cried, excitedly. She had missed the earlier mention. "Yay! Putt-putt!"

ooOoo

Chuck called Casey as they made their way to the miniature golf course. After a few rings, Casey answered, his voice hushed. "Hey, Chuck. There's a manhunt on for you. They found a gun outside Larkin's. The murder weapon. Your prints are on it."

"Shit? How?"

"Don't know. One bit of good news, I guess. Legal skank has stabilized."

"Jeez, Case, ease up on her. Can't you wait to call her that until she's on her feet."

"She's hardly ever on her _feet,_ Bartowski, even when she isn't in critical condition. Hence, _legal skank."_

Chuck gave up. "Look, we went to the Monroes…" He told Casey the story, about having Sasha, about the Monroes. He left out the thumb drive.

"Well, that explains _that._ "

"What, Casey?"

"Black-and-whites just got dispatched. Multiple shots fired in a neighborhood. What's their address?"

Chuck told him.

"Yelp. There are gunshot victims. A panel truck fled the scene, chased by another car or cars. Where are you now?"

"Almost at Morgan's."

"Well, shit. Is Alex's truck there?"

"We're just arriving now...Yeah, it's here."

"You _sure_ you weren't followed, kid?"

"Yes."

"No offense, but what does Sarah say?"

Chuck asked her, off-phone. "She says we weren't followed," Chuck noted, back on-phone.

"Okay. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll find out about the Monroes. I may have to take you into custody, Chuck. I told 'em it was a mistake, but I can't get anyone to listen so far."

"I understand. Thanks, Casey." Chuck ended the call.

ooOoo

Sarah had heard it all, even Casey's part of the conversation. She gave Chuck's hand a quick squeeze, then she liberated Sasha from the car seat. As she turned back to the front and handed the little girl to Chuck, she was struck by the sight of the car seat in the back seat of the Porsche. She would never have thought the sight would seem so...natural. She felt a surge of something, subterranean but strong, and it intensified as she looked at Chuck, who was making faces, entertaining Sasha, while he told her about a video game, a frog dodging traffic.

ooOoo

Sarah watched as Chuck got out of the car with Sasha. He put her down and she walked alongside him, her pink Chuck's taking two or three steps for each of his black Chuck's one. Sarah followed them as they made their way to the open window of the putt-putt building. Morgan was seated there. He broke into a huge grin when he saw them coming.

The course was empty. From behind her, Sarah heard Alex. "Sarah, Chuck!"

They stopped. Alex was out of her truck and walking to them. She was looking down at Sasha, who had taken Chuck's hand in one of hers and Sarah's in the other.

"And who is this raven-haired beauty?"

Sasha giggled. "Birds have feathers, not hair, silly. And my name is Sasha."

"Well, aren't you the smart one?" Alex giggled and looked up at Sarah from her bent-kneed posture next to Sasha.

"We're...babysitting."

"Practice, eh?" Sarah then knew what the bone-deep feeling was she had in the car.

"Uh...Not exactly. Sasha is one of my students. We are watching her until her parents can join us."

Alex stood up. "Well, let's see if she's hungry, then she can play some golf. It's lunchtime."

"I'm hungry!" Sasha informed Alex.

Chuck touched Sarah's arm. "I'm going to go inside. Probably better if I am not so visible. On this course, I'm like a human lighthouse."

"We'll join you. Alex, can you bring extra? Chuck and I haven't eaten since...in a while. Is it Monday?"

Alex laughed. "All day, as they say."

* * *

 **A/N2** Action well underway. Partial explanations offered. Tune in next time for Chapter 22, "Neo Turf Masters". Fore!


	22. Neo Turf Masters

**A/N1** Ah, the golf course. The scent of freshly cut green grass.

Um, well, in this case, the scent of freshly hosed green astroturf.

More story.

How about being kind enough to leave me a review?

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

 _Neo Turf Masters_

* * *

Morgan welcomed Chuck, Sarah, and Sasha inside. He leaped up from his stool at the counter and walked over to them. He grabbed Sarah and gave her an enthusiastic hug. She returned it, touched by his immediate, open affection for her.

"His Girl Friday!" Morgan said to her, then he laughed and playfully punched at Chuck's stomach. Chuck shook his head but laughed in amusement too, shooting Sarah a shy, loving smile.

Morgan looked to Sasha. He leaned down - Sasha tilted her head up a little - and Morgan gave her his biggest smile. "Hey, little lady. And who would you be?"

"I...would be….Sasha." Sasha struggled with the phrase. But she bravely went on. "And who...who would...um, what's your name, mister?"

"Morgan, that's my name. I am Chuck's buddy, and this is my putt-putt course."

"I like it! Can I play?"

"Sure, but I think Alex is bringing you something to eat. How about after that?" Sasha nodded enthusiastically.

Morgan gave Chuck a look, raised eyebrows, dropping his head sideways at Sasha. Chuck mouthed, "Later."

Morgan grabbed a club, an orange golf ball, and a plastic cup. He put the cup on the floor and gave the club to Sasha. He put the golf ball down a few feet in front of the cup. "See, you can practice until Alex gets here."

Sasha stood over the ball and hit it toward the cup. It went in. "Yes!" Sasha and Morgan yelled simultaneously, both throwing their arms into the air. Then Morgan grabbed one of Sasha's hands and they began a rollicking victory dance.

Alex came in carrying a plastic tray heaped high with tacos, chips, and salad. She stopped when she saw the two tiny dancers - one more tiny than the other. She smiled at Morgan with deep affection.

"Hey, all! Food's here." She put the tray down on the table away from the window and began dividing the food among Chuck and Sarah and Sasha. Sarah made sure that Sasha could handle her taco. Alex had thoughtfully given her a soft one, and she gave the girl some salad and a couple of chips. Sasha began eating with appetite. So did Chuck and Sarah.

"Mmmm. This is yummy." Sasha mumbled toward Alex, her mouth stuffed with taco.

"Glad you like it, Sasha."

Sarah was struck again by how good the tacos were, and she thought of that day, not long ago and forever ago, when she shared her classroom beach with Chuck. "Mmmhmm. So good, Alex, I…"

"Well, if it isn't _Dr. Watson_ …"

Everyone inside the clubhouse turned at once toward the counter, the open window. Jessup was standing there, his hand inside his coat, his eyes fixed on Chuck.

Sarah got up from the table. Jessup's eyes flicked to her, his gaze a mix of contempt and hunger. "And Sherlock, too."

"C'mon, Bartowski. You're coming with me. A small matter of murder and attempted murder, Larkin and Roberts."

Alex and Morgan gasped. Sasha, still eating, not understanding, frowned at Jessup.

"Look, Jessup," Chuck started, standing up beside Sarah, keeping his voice even, "this is a mistake. Casey will vouch for me. Rhonda too. I had nothing to do with that."

"You can explain all that at the station…"

"But Casey will be here in a minute…" Chuck offered, but Jessup cut him off.

"No, he won't. He's talking to the new Chief about some goings-on in the desert," Jessup's face hardened around a suppressed flare of anxiety. "Now, C'mon. I don't want to pull my gun here…"

"There is no need, no need," Chuck said, hurriedly. He looked at Sarah. "I guess this is the moment when the detective tells his best girl he's _gotta go downtown_."

Sarah nodded, her lips compressed into a thin line. She took her eyes from Jessup. Stepping to where Chuck blocked Jessup's view of her, she said in a whisper: "Chuck, I don't trust him. How'd he know you were here? Casey wouldn't have sent him…" Chuck blinked; he understood her.

Morgan: "Chuck, dude, what the hell is going on? Larkin's dead? The Jill-bot: someone tried to kill her?" Morgan's surprised tone became reflective. "Well, that, I admit, makes sense."

Sarah turned and saw Alex kick Morgan under the table, motioning toward Sasha. "Shut up, darling. _Not_ helping." But Alex looked perplexed too. Sarah nodded her thanks.

"What are _you_ doing here, Jessup?" Chuck's question had a marked overtone of smartass.

Jessup jerked slightly. "What's that mean, Bartowski?"

Sarah saw Chuck stand straighter, emphasizing his height, stepping toward Jessup to tower over him. "It means you are the worst detective on the force, too lazy even for luck. So, how'd you find me?"

Jessup's tongue flicked out of his mouth and he licked his lips. There was a cruel pinch in the corner of his eyes. "I'm here, that's all you need to know."

Chuck gave a skeptical chuckle. "Oh, C'mon, Jessup, fess up." Chuck glanced at Sarah. "Detective poetry." Sarah giggled.

"You pissant," Jessup growled through clenched teeth. "Stupid college boy playing detective. Well, you're about to get yours."

"Yeah, right, Jessup," Chuck said, stepping toward Jessup again, so that only the counter was between them, "like a clock-punching cop schmuck like you could ever hope to best _me_. Every part of me that matters is twice the size of you, brain and...all."

Jessup's face grew blood-red with fury. " _Give it to me_ , you shithead," Jessup demanded, his hand clearly clenching his gun beneath his coat, the threat palpable.

"Give you what, Jessup?"

"The program."

Everything stopped. Sarah felt dizzy.

ooOoo

"Give it to me, Bartowski, and I will walk away. You can take your chances with another officer. Give it to me!" Jessup seemed to have lost control. "They'll be here soon. Give it to me and you can make a run for it. Refuse, and one of the holes on this course will be your grave."

Sarah noticed that there was a box of plain yellow golf pencils on the counter, the box labeled 'Buy More'. She noticed it because she saw Chuck's hand inch toward it. She prepared to go for a knife.

Chuck grabbed the box of pencils and threw them in Jessup's face, hurdling the desk behind them. He punched Jessup, who had stepped back in the shower of lead, and Jessup stepped on some of the pencils, then skated on them, his feet rolling out from underneath him. He went down hard on his back.

Chuck took off toward the far side of the course, angling toward the back. Jessup got up and gave chase.

Sarah wheeled around. Morgan and Alex had their mouths agape, their eyes wide as saucers. Sasha was still contentedly eating her taco, although she was giggling at what she took to be Mr. Chuck's funny antics.

"Sasha, we're going to play a game with Chuck. Hide and seek. You go hide with Morgan and Alex in the taco truck." Sasha nodded excitedly.

Sarah continued, looking at Alex. "Take her, lock the truck down, don't open it for anyone but me or Chuck - or your Dad." Alex jumped up and got Sasha's plate. Morgan lifted Sasha up.

"Are we going to run again, like Mr. Chuck?"

"Guess so," Morgan said, taking off but offering the little girl a quick, reassuring smile.

Sarah hurdled the counter and went after her guy. She looked back over her shoulder and saw Morgan, Sasha, and Alex get into the taco truck. They closed the door.

There was a screech of tires. A dark SUV had squealed to a stop in the parking lot. _Shit._ Three men piled out. _Shit, shit, shit._

Sarah ran on.

The course was larger than most miniature golf courses. She had noticed that when they came up, and it was not, on the back side, where the higher numbered holes were, flat. There were undulations on the ground and hedges atop them, so that some holes were not visible from where she was. Chuck and Jessup had gone that way and were evidently hidden by the hedges.

Sarah ran toward Hole 12, the one with the giant frog. She had no time to grin at that fact. She heard shots ring out; her blood froze, chunks of ice. _Chuck._

 _My God, if Jessup hurt him, Jessup will not leave this putt-putt course alive.._.

Behind her, Sarah heard more tires screeching, but she did not turn. She ran on. She high-stepped through the tires on Hole 14. She leaped over the downward funnel green of 16. But she had to turn aside and go around the hedge between 16 and 18.

As she rounded the corner of the hedge, she saw Chuck standing, gun out, barrel smoking, in front of a giant clown head. The clown head was smoking from a hole right between its eyes. Tinny music began to play - familiar to Sarah from the circus. _Enter the Gladiators?_ Jessup was on the ground, squirming toward his gun. It had fallen. There was blood on the thigh of his pants leg.

Chuck seemed hypnotized, like a man at a seance. He stared at Jessup but said nothing and did not react to Jessup's hand as it darted toward the gun. Sarah reacted. Silver knifed through the air and Jessup screamed, yanking back his hand, a blade through it.

Chuck jerked to life at the scream. He focused on Jessup, ran to him and kicked the gun away just as Sarah reached them. She grabbed Chuck and hugged him to her, holding on as if her life depended on it. _Because it does._

More shots from the front of the course. A scream and a curse. Then...silence...and more silence.

Silence. Sarah held Chuck for a long time before she made herself face the fact that she did not know what had happened on the front of the course.

She reluctantly surrendered her embrace of Chuck and ran to Jessup's gun, picking it up. As she did, she heard footfalls on the course, coming toward them. She readied the gun. She seemed to be standing there forever. The music went from tinny to wonky, speeding up and slowing down randomly, and the clown head was now smoking heavily, an acrid stench filling the air around them.

Someone came running around the hedge. It was Virginia, gun in hand. Sarah recognized the gun: a silver S&W. Virginia stopped. Her eyes swept the scene. "Par for the course for you two?"

There was obvious relief and the barest hint of merriment in her eyes as she continued. "Sasha's fine - everyone in the... _taco truck?._..is fine too. Everyone's fine."

ooOoo

Chuck slumped in relief. "Thank God."

Virginia put her gun away. She walked to Jessup. She saw the knife in his hand, the hand he was cradling carefully against his chest. Virginia looked at the blade and then at Chuck and Sarah. Sarah nodded. "Impressive, Miss Walker. You are not a normal kindergarten teacher. I would have felt a lot better for a long time if I had guessed…"

Monroe dialed her phone. "Agent Wilmore here. We need an ambulance and a cleaner team at…" She looked at Chuck. "What's the address again?" Chuck told her. She repeated it into the phone. "Keep the local LEO away…"

"Wait," Chuck broke in. "One of them is my friend, Casey. That's his daughter in the taco truck. His partner's name is Rhonda." She told the person on the phone to make an exception for Casey and Rhonda. "C'mon. Matthew took a bullet but he's okay." A flash of pain showed on Virginia's face. It passed. "The three guys chasing you are...not okay."

"What about Jessup?" Chuck looked at the bleeding man, who seemed to be on the verge of passing out. Virginia looked at him impassively. "He'll keep bleeding, but not to death, dammit. Anyway, he's not going anywhere. C'mon. _We need to talk_."

Sarah gave Chuck a look and she returned it. He put his gun in his holster and took Jessup's from Sarah. He put it in one of his pockets.

At just that moment, Chesko burst into flames and Jessup passed out. Chuck went back and pulled Jessup carefully away from the blazing clown head. After getting Jessup situated, Chuck turned. Sarah was watching the clown head burn, the orange flames reflected in her blue eyes.

"Morgan's going to be pissed," Chuck said, grinning despite his words.

"You don't seem to be, Chuck."

He flinched slightly, embarrassed. "I hate clowns."

* * *

 **A/N2** More answers next time as we hear from Virginia and Matthew. Chuck and Sarah begin to reckon with the question he did not not ask and the answer she did not not give. Chapter 23, "What's My Line?"

Thoughts?

Z

PS A photo I took years ago of a putt-putt frog, a photo that has been on my mind as I wrote this story, is on my blog, _Quantum Est in Rebus Inane._ I assume everyone noticed the 1s and 0s that surround the ladder on the story avatar.


	23. What's My Line?

**A/N1** You knew it was coming - the dreaded exposition chapter. Dum dum dum dum...Hold tight.

Actually, it shouldn't be so bad. Remember, this is meant to be fun. I'm certainly having a good time with it. And the plot is hardly more convoluted than _The Big Sleep_ : although it is worth remembering that even Raymond Chandler (the writer) didn't understand the plot when Howard Hawks (the movie director) called with questions.

Thanks for the reviews and PMs! Two or three more chapters to go, and then those of you not reading MisEd will be done with me. Folks have been kind and hospitable in my year and a half stay here. Sorry for leaving words all strewn around...

Don't own _Chuck._ Even at this late date, almost finished with fanfiction writing, and I own nothing, _nothing_. Oh, I do have a _Chuck_ coffee mug; it puzzles my students when I lecture with it in hand...

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

 _What's My Line?_

* * *

Chesko flamed behind them. His tinny cackling crackling...fading...gone.

Virginia led them around the hedge and back toward the clubhouse. The course was chaos, a battle scene. Sarah scanned the wreckage, human and putt-putt.

Some of the tires on Hole 14 were kicked around and one of three men Sarah saw exit the SUV was faced-down among the tires, unmoving. Another man was head-down in the funnel of Hole 16. He too was not moving. The final man was seated, cuffed, on the extended bottom lip of the frog on Hole 12. A dart was sticking out of his leg. He looked woozy and completely disoriented - and it did not help that he seemed to be about to be swallowed by the frog. Another _FWA_ (Frog With Attitude) - even if its eyes weren't red.

Morgan was standing beside Matthew, who was seated on a stool the clubhouse. Morgan was helping him wrap a towel around his upper arm. There was blood on both their hands, but Morgan seemed uninjured. The blood must have been Matthew's.

Neither Alex nor Sasha was in view. As soon as Virginia saw her husband, she began to walk fast, almost to run, toward him. Sarah reached out for Chuck's hand and slowed him, turned him toward her.

"So, Jessup got a shot off, Chuck?" She felt her stomach clench just asking the question; the thought literally sickened her.

Over Chuck's shoulder, she saw Virginia kiss Matthew and take over nursing duties from Morgan. Morgan wiped his hands, gave up the towel and faced his course, his head rotating as he surveyed it.

Sarah looked back into Chuck's eyes.

"Yeah, I've never actually...you know, _shot_ anyone before. I have never actually _shot at_ anyone before…But Jessup missed and I didn't. Casey will be proud. I don't think Jessup expected Chesko to start moving and laughing. Me either. He must have malfunctioned again. It startled Jessup. He killed Chesko - but not me, I guess."

Sarah rose up on her toes and kissed Chuck, her lips plump with love and relief. "Well, thank God for...Wait, the clown has...had...a name? _Chesko?_ "

"Yeah, yeah. But don't ask me, ask Morgan. I just accepted it and never questioned it. Better not to pry into clownish secrets."

Sarah let that pass. She put her hand on Chuck's cheek. "Chuck, I can't tell you how frightened I was when I heard those shots. I am not going to lose you. _Never._ " She kissed him again.

They walked on and reached the others just as an ambulance arrived - no sirens, no lights or sounds - and two black vans. Virginia walked toward the vans, but stopped and pointed the paramedic who first got out of the ambulance toward her husband. The second out went around to open the rear. Men in coveralls began to emerge from the vans, all with small bags, like doctor's bags, in their hands. They wore tool belts. Virginia talked to them and gestured toward various spots on the course. The men nodded in unison then dispersed. A couple headed for the cuffed man in the frog's mouth. Others headed for the bodies. A final two headed toward Hole 18, Jessup. It was all orchestrated, balletic. A touch frightening.

Morgan was no longer rotating his head. He was staring fixedly into the distance. Without moving his eyes, he spoke to Sarah and Chuck. "That smoke there... _Chesko_?" His voice choked. Morgan finally looked at them, his eyes wet.

"Um, yeah, sorry, little buddy, sorry, but Chesko's given up the ghost, as they say."

Morgan looked puzzled. "Who says that, Chuck?"

Chuck shrugged. "I'm not sure, actually. Heard it somewhere."

"I'm...I'm gonna _miss_ him, Chuck, the big pain in my ass." Chuck put his arm on Morgan's shoulder in consolation.

After a moment, Chuck spoke, his voice sounding like a TV voice-over: "We _can_ rebuild him, Morgan...we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability...Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster." Chuck paused. "Okay, maybe not faster."

Morgan rubbed the water from his eyes and smiled damply. "The six-million dollar clown?"

Chuck laughed sympathetically. "I hope he won't cost that much."

Morgan nodded. "Me too."

Sarah interrupted. "Morgan, where's Alex, Sasha?"

"Alex kept Sasha in the van. The woman with the shiny gun - Jesus, is she scary or what? - she asked Alex to keep the little girl in there. The little girl is hers, his?" Morgan motioned to Virginia and Matthew, both talking quietly with one of the men from the van as the paramedic tending Matthew's wounded shoulder.

"Yes, theirs."

"And these guys…" Morgan motioned to the bodies and the coveralled men all at once, "I'm guessing I shouldn't ask?"

"Probably not, Morg," Chuck conceded. "I will tell you whatever I can...later. For now, you might want to go and hose down whatever is left of Chesko."

"Right, dude, right." Morgan paused. "I know you don't mourn his passing, but it's nice of you to commiserate with me, Chuck."

Morgan headed toward Hole 18. He passed two men who had Jessup between them, his arms around their shoulders. The knife was no longer in his hand and his hand was bandaged. A tourniquet was on his leg. Morgan looked at them as they passed but he kept going.

Virginia joined Chuck and Sarah. The three of them watched as Jessup was taken to the ambulance.

ooOoo

"So, Miss Walker, Mr. Chuck…"

"Just Sarah and Chuck, please," Sarah replied.

Virginia smiled. "Thanks, call me Ginny. My...friends...do. Turns out, Matthew didn't take a bullet. He got grazed. I wasn't able to tell from where I was when it happened." Another flash of pain went across her face and was gone. "We need to talk to you. You two know things we need to know and vice versa."

The paramedic had finished with Matthew and Matthew joined them, his arm in a sling. The four of them walked into the clubhouse and sat down at the table, still covered in with plates of tacos, chips, and salad. They pushed the food aside.

After an awkward moment, Chuck started. "Say...Ginny...outside, you called yourself 'Agent Wilmore' not 'Agent Monroe'..."

Ginny smiled at Matthew before she answered, real warmth on her face. "Yes, Wilmore is my married name, Matthew's name. I decided to take it when we got married. Monroe is our cover name."

Chuck looked at Matthew. "Wilmore - as in Wilmore Laboratories?"

Matthew nodded. "Small world, huh? Richard Wilmore was my father. He owned the labs, developed them. He hired Stephen Bartowski...and Stephen - he was your father?" Chuck nodded and Matthew continued. "I knew him when I was a boy. I sometimes would hang out at the labs; Dad would take me to work on school vacation days and stuff. I really liked your dad, admired him. He and my dad were my heroes…"

"I want to hear about that," Chuck said eagerly, "but, later, I guess. First, we need to figure out what just happened. How did you two end up here, here at the putt-putt course?"

Ginny sighed. "Long story. Short version. After you two left with Sasha, the Ring agents attacked the house…"

Chuck broke in. "Ring agents?"

"A group of rogue agents and criminals bent on creating a Fascist America - 'America' with a 'k', as they like to say."

Chuck nodded slowly, a grin creeping onto his face. "Okay...Okay...but ' _The Ring'_? Why not 'Our Gang', or 'Bad Guys Club'? I mean, 'The Ring', that's not even scary."

Matthew laughed bitterly. "No, the name's _not_. But what it names _is_. Don't confuse the properties of the name with the properties of the thing named.

"Ginny and I have been in a running battle with them for a long time. Anyway, to answer your question I need to tell some more of Ginny's short version of the story. We have, had, a tracker in Sasha's shoes. Actually, there's one sewed into each item of her clothing. That's how we knew where to find you. We knew we needed to because the Ring agents told us we did."

Sarah in disbelief: " _They_ told you?"

"Yes, but not intentionally. We fought them off at the house and got to our car. They chased us. There was an...incident at a busy intersection, and the SUV and the panel truck got separated. Only the panel truck remained in contact with us. The SUV got lost.

"We turned the tables on the truck. Ginny shot the driver and the truck careened into a pole. The driver was dead," Matthew shot a look of affection and awe at Ginny, "and the other men were hurt. I tranquilized them. Ginny and I were talking, trying to figure out what to do about Sasha and the thumb drive...when I realized the truck was bugged. I should have figured that the Ring wouldn't trust the Ring. I realized it was likely the other Ring agents, the ones in the SUV, had heard. But I don't know how _they_ knew to come here."

"I do, I think," Casey said as he entered the clubhouse, Alex behind him. Ginny jumped up, but Chuck motioned to her.

"It's okay. This is my friend, Detective John Casey. Alex is his daughter."

Ginny relaxed. She looked at Alex. "Sasha?"

"In the truck with Morgan. They're playing video games on his phone. A golf game, believe it or not." Ginny smiled in thanks at Alex.

Casey looked at her and at Matthew, then at Chuck. "The Monroes?"

Chuck nodded. "Yes. Well, sorta…The Monroe-Wilmores."

Casey let that go. "Jessup overheard my conversation with you on the phone, Chuck. He heard me ask about Alex."

"Yeah, and as I just told Dad, that creep, Jessup - I didn't know his name, just his face - had been coming to the truck for lunch, and to stare at me lately. He knew my name, and must've figured out I am Casey's daughter." Alex looked at Casey and he nodded in thanks. She left the clubhouse.

Casey went on. "Rhonda saw him standing near me and mentioned it to me after my meeting with the interim Captain," Casey added. "That's when I knew I needed to get here. Looks like I missed all the fun. _Putts the fun in the hole_. Ha!"

Chuck furrowed his brow, ignoring the sloganeering. "But Jessup asked for the thumb drive…" When Casey grunted in question, Chuck looked at him. "That'll get explained as we go along, Casey." Casey grunted again in response. Chuck went on. "How did Jessup know?... Oh, I see, Casey… Jessup's in with the Ring. Still…"

"He also heard me reporting to the Captain - about the desert, about capturing Perry and Shaw…"

"Wait," Ginny said, excitedly, "Perry and Shaw - you captured them?"

"Yes, last night. Long story, but that's why we showed up at your place earlier." Chuck explained then returned to Casey.

"So he knew Sarah and I would be of interest to the Ring, and they knew about me and the thumb drive….So they - the SUV guys, I guess - they told Jessup about the drive?"

Matthew raised his hand. Ginny laughed. "You can just jump in and speak, Matthew. We've gone over this _a few_ times…"

Matthew looked chagrinned. "Sorry. They couldn't take the chance you'd hide it or destroy it, so they told Jessup, hoping he could secure it…"

"Right," Sarah growled, "and he thought he would make a play with it on his own. Make the Ring pay to get it. If you'd gone with him, Chuck…" Sarah shivered.

Chuck grabbed her hand. "Thanks, Sarah." He kissed her cheek. "Thanks. For _everything._ "

"So was Jessup a Ring agent or not?" Chuck turned back to the others as he asked.

Ginny shrugged. "Semantics, I think. He was _with_ them in some sense."

Suddenly, the room was filled with a shrill whistle - Casey. He stopped whistling and shook his head, muttering to himself. "Goddamit, goddamit…" He stomped his feet.

"What is it, Casey?" Chuck asked.

"I hadn't thought about it, wouldn't have thought about it, until today...and given last night...I have a sick feeling about those drums in the desert, Chuck. Have you asked him," Casey indicated Matthew with a dip of his head, "about your anti-rejection drug theory?"

Matthew's eyes got big. "Chuck?"

"Yeah, um, Dad told me once what he was working on. In simple terms, anyway. He said that he was trying to move information from a computer into the brain, but having trouble getting it to work. It was impermanent and plagued by side-effects. He said it was like a transplant and that he thought he needed an anti-rejection drug to make it work, to get the person who received the information to accept it…"

"He knew that then? All that time ago? It wasn't in the notes we found at Wilmore. Odd. But, yeah, your dad was right, is right. The problems are analogous. I've been working on a new version of the AI. Your Dad called it the Intersect. Before, I created a version of his version, patched up, and I thought it would work, but it didn't. The decay rate of the information was slower than his, but the rate of psychosis turned out to be higher and the onset more immediate and nearly irreversible. Your dad's volunteers almost all recovered." Matthew stopped talking and stared at the floor. "Many of mine didn't."

He shook himself. "But the thing to focus on now is that the Ring stole a copy of that version. They might have hit upon the strategy you mentioned...what did you say again, 'anti-rejection drugs'. I thought of it. Your dad did too. My current version, the new one on the thumb drive," Chuck took it out of his pants pocket and passed it to Matthew, "is an attempt to change the character of the information, not the character of the mind that receives it."

"Yeah," Chuck commented absentmindedly, shaking his head, "that's why it took me a while to understand…."

Matthew looked at Chuck carefully, taking his measure again. Then he asked the group, "But why does this matter?"

"Because we found out last night, yesterday, that Perry and Shaw, _aka_ the Ring, is connected to FARMA," Chuck explained.

"FARMA? The monolithic drug company?"

Matthew asked the question then looked at Ginny. "What do you think? It fits - in more ways than one."

"What's that mean?" Chuck looked from Matthew to Ginny and back again.

"We've long thought that the Ring is ultimately run by one person, and it had to be someone with enormous wealth, enormous resources, enormous political clout."

"Like the guy who spearheads Big Medicine, who runs the government lobby, who has a lot of Congress in his pocket…"

"Yeah, but Foxworth has always come up clean - at least in _that_ way," Ginny noted. "We know he's dirty in other ways, but they aren't normally things US intelligence gets involved in."

"So," Chuck offered, "Foxworth, FARMA, could be the money and power source for the Ring?"

"It's possible. It would also be just the right place to pursue research on the drug you were talking about. Where better?"

Chuck pointed at the thumb drive now in Matthew's hand. "So does your version work?"

Matthew chewed on his lip and Ginny nodded at him.

"Yes," he reported, "I think so. But I have been reluctant to test it on...anyone. So, I haven't told the CIA how far along I am. Given what's happened, I'm guessing that kept us unmolested.

"The Ring tried to capture us a while ago, but thanks to Ginny, we got away. The CIA moved us here, to protect us, and so I could continue my research. We thought that doing the research in the suburbs of LA was likely the last place anyone would expect it.

"But I'm now sure the CIA has been infiltrated. If Perry and Shaw were here, it was for us - we've had run-ins with them in the past, particularly Shaw." Matthew and Ginny shared a look.

"They must also have known what I told the CIA, because, it seems, since they didn't bother us yet, they were hoping to wait it out, wait for me to finish before interfering again. They're evil sons of bitches, but they also know that torture and blackmail are not trustworthy stimulants for serious research. They knew where we were and thought their mole would relay word when I finished.

"I think you are right about the mole," Chuck threw in, "I found Virginia's photo and CIA information on a site on the dark web. Now, I'm betting it was a Ring-run site, a buried source of information for operatives."

Matthew shook his head. "That must have been some impressive hacking, Chuck. I've dug around to no result, just to keep us protected. So, did you use the…"

" _Tron_ boys," Casey graveled out, "let's put the kibosh on the Festival of Geek…"

Both Chuck and Matthew muttered 'Nerd' at the same time...

"...until later...Here's the thing. Jessup has been working a case for a while, one Larkin gave him, having to do with the disappearance of homeless people across LA.

"It hasn't been a lot, not enough to make the front page, and it has happened over time. Jessup never seemed to get anywhere on the case. But Larkin left the case with him. I thought it was just Jessup's normal sloth. Rhonda asked Larkin about it once, hoping to take it on, and Larkin told her the case was low-priority. She didn't push - she really couldn't, and Larkin was a privileged ass who thought the law only meant to serve _certain people_ and not others..."

"Casey," Sarah began softly, "are you suggesting what I _think_ you are suggesting?"

"Yeah, sorry, I am. I wonder if FARMA's been conscripting their 'volunteers'. I wonder if the man who was supposed to be solving the case was involved in the case, was actually making lost the very folks he was supposed to make found...I hate to say it, but there were a lot of drums out there in that desert hole."

No one spoke.

Chuck changed the subject, hardly able to bear the thought.

"So, how did you two meet?" He looked at Virginia. She got a panicked look on her face and sent a glance toward Matthew.

He spoke. "Ginny was assigned to me. My handler. I was her asset. The government got wind of my continuation of Stephen's research and they invited me to either continue it in an _underground_ facility or _above ground_ , with a full-time handler. I chose above ground, especially after I met the handler."

Ginny actually blushed. She looked at the ground. Matthew went on. "She's the best of the best, and I have no idea how it happened, and I guess it was against her better judgment," Ginny shook her head at that, "but, over time, we fell in love. She was posing as my girlfriend and over time the cover dates just became…"

"Real," Ginny said, completing the thought and looking up for a second.

Matthew beamed at her and she blushed again, looked down. "Yeah...Yeah...We secretly got engaged shortly before we, um, well, before we conceived Sasha, and at that point, Graham really couldn't stop us.

"This was just before he retired, and that helped. He wasn't in the mood to fight about it. We got married. Ginny stopped working until after Sasha was born but then she went back into the field. That meant that Sasha and I went underground while she was away…"

Ginny was studying her hands, scowling outwardly, but Chuck could tell she was targeting herself inwardly. She did not look at Matthew, although he tried to get her attention, to let her see him smile. He gave up and turned back to the others, his eyes soft.

"But we eventually decided that wouldn't work. She took a leave of absence and we were trying to plan a new life when the Ring turned up with their version of the Intersect. They started hunting me, and so we went underground again.

"But the Ring found us, attacked us, and would have gotten us if it weren't for Ginny. A lot of good people died or got hurt in that fight, and it's haunted Sasha, even though she was too little fully to understand. - Sorry, Sarah, we weren't at liberty to explain that." Sarah nodded.

"We got moved here. We thought we were safe. We seemed safe for a long time. I knew my work was almost over and we started...thinking about, planning for...a brother or sister for Sasha." Ginny did look at Matthew then, and her bright, eager smile counterbalanced her earlier look of self-chastening. "And then, well, you two showed up at our back door. That's it, more or less."

Casey let all that settle, then asked the obvious question. "So, what now?"

Ginny answered, brandishing her phone in her hand as she stood. "I need to go talk to Boosinger, the CIA director. See what she thinks we should do. If we can take Foxworth down, we may be able to finish the Ring. And maybe then Matthew and I can take the kids and have a normal life."

Chuck and Sarah turned to Matthew, understanding before he did. "Wait," he called out to Ginny as she went out the door. "What did you just say?" He turned to everyone else as he got up, grinning. "I hate it when she walks off alone like that." He practically sprinted out of the clubhouse after her.

Casey pushed his chair back and stood, digging his phone out of his rear pocket. "I need to call Rhonda. Tell her what's what. See if she has news." He looked at his phone. "Hey, she sent me a text. Legal skank is conscious. She told officers you had nothing to do with the shooting, but they don't know what to make of the gun. Anyway, right now, the heat's off. Let me see if Rhonda knows anything more." He left.

ooOoo

All of a sudden, Chuck and Sarah were alone in the quiet clubhouse. The sound of the clock on the wall was audible. Tick, tick, tick. Chuck gave Sarah a long, blinking look.

"Don't know about you, but I'm sorta dazed."

She did not reply. Before he knew what hit him, Sarah was in his lap, kissing him as if the world was about to explode. When she finished, he looked into her eyes. They were dazed, as he knew his must be, his now two times over.

"Wow! Wow. What did I do to deserve that?"

"You are Chuck, and _that_ deserves that. You're wonderful, you know that?"

"No, not really, but when you say it, I believe it. You're amazing. Thanks again, Sarah."

She gave him a narrow-eyed look, tilting her head to one side. "Chuck, could you really afford to buy that car seat?"

He was surprised by the question. "Yes, yeah. I made some money off a case I finished the other day…Why do you ask?"

Her gaze flitted away from his for a second and then returned. "I would kind of like it...if... _we_ kept it."

"We?" Chuck repeated before he understood. He tilted his head down, looking up at her, joking. "Is there something I should know?"

"No, not that I know of, Chuck," she gave his shoulder a little shove, "I mean, nothing that's supposed to happen in nine months or anything like that. And I don't mean we have to be in any hurry, for anything, but I would like it if we were...ready, hoping...that, you know, sometime not too far away..."

He laughed softly then he gazed directly into her eyes, his countenance perfectly steady. "Okay. I'd really like it if _we_ kept it."

Sarah gazed off into the distance for a moment, then she gave him a shy smile. "Are you okay with everything, Chuck, you know, with what happened, or did not not happen, in the truck this morning?"

He smiled a relaxed and happy smile. "Yeah. Yeah. Are you still not not accepting?"

She gave him a serious look, as direct as his a moment before. "No. No, I mean, yes, yes. Yes, Chuck, yes, yes, yes. I accept." She hugged him. _Yes, yes, yes…_

"Hmmm..." Chuck said, pulling slowly away. Sarah leaned back to see his face. He made his face solemn and spoke. "Sherlock, I fear that this may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your methods. Miss Walker has done me the honor to accept me as a husband in prospective."

She grinned, delighted with him. "I suppose that is my loss and her gain, Dr. Watson."

* * *

 **A/N2** So, what about Foxworth? What about Jill? Tune in next time for still more action and still more answers. Chapter 24, "Go".


	24. Go

**A/N1** This chapter and another, then an epilogue. I already feel myself fading from view, like Clint Eastwood at the end of _High Plains Drifter_ _._

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

 _Go_

* * *

Sarah was standing outside the clubhouse. The ambulance was gone. The vans, too. The course, while not restored to its earlier condition, looked almost playable. The coveralled men had done good work, quick work.

Morgan was checking the hazards on Holes 12-16, making sure things were still working or still rightly configured. Hole 18 was, of course, a loss; if he reopened, he'd have to cope with the demise of Chesko.

Chuck was helping Morgan, and Matthew was watching them, his arm preventing him from being any serious manual help. The three of them seemed buddies immediately. Sarah was watching them, smiling to herself, when Ginny walked up, her phone in her hand but her conversation with the CIA Director, Boosinger, evidently finished.

She stood beside Sarah and watched, an unconscious smile forming on her face.

"So," Ginny began, "you and Chuck? Watching you, seems like a new thing - but a big one, a serious one?"

Sarah nodded without taking her eyes off the man in question. "Yes, the biggest thing of the sort ever in my life. It's just taken me over. I never quite believed I could fall for a man, but especially not like this, a headlong plunge - a joyous, headlong plunge." Sarah sighed involuntarily.

Ginny responded, her smile still in place, "Mmmmhmmm. I know what you mean. I thought handling Matthew would be a piece of cake. Brainy, lonely, inexperienced: I'd have him under my control in seconds. I walked into Wilmore Laboratories, through the front doors with their thick glass and metalwork, expecting to enthrall him, render him pliable." She snapped her fingers.

"Instead, I looked into his eyes and the whole strategic situation reversed on me. I went in mentally spouting Sun Tzu, _The Art of War:_ 'Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots.' I guess I actually believed I knew what those were before I met him….

"But instead that's what he did to me, _Sun Tzu_ -ed me. Forced me to reveal myself, my vulnerable spots. Starting right then and there...I don't think I ever had a fighting chance. Routed on the field at first contact." Ginny seemed lost in self-estimation. "Pride and falls, and all that. I sure fell. I'm still falling, years later. I can't manage to be the hardass I'm supposed to be; he softens me, and damn it, _I like it_."

Ginny was quiet for a moment, then she breathed in sharply, putting her hand over her mouth.

"Oh, God, did I just say all that out loud? See what I mean: it's all his fault." Her vexation was mixed with merriment. After another moment, Ginny shook her head and laughed. "You know that story, about the _Memento Homo_?"

Sarah looked at Ginny and shook her head. Ginny explained. "A gladiator slave who drove the chariot of a great commander and repeated to him: ' _Memento homo_ \- you are only a man.' Matthew doesn't tell me but that but he makes me know - I am only a woman."

"Funny," Sarah said, quietly, "it was sort of like that for me, with Chuck. I had this plan. It fell apart almost immediately because I fell immediately.

"When I was in college, I took this course in Women's Studies: _Women of Power_. One day we watched a film about Venetian Courtesans, _Dangerous Beauty_. Not a great film, really, but the woman at its center was a poet as well as a courtesan (and good with a sword). There's this bit of one of her poems - not great poetry, maybe, but not doggerel - and it stuck with me...and it's been in my head since the first day Chuck visited my class."

"Oh, is that how Sasha met him?" Ginny asked.

Sarah smiled at the memory, especially since Chuck currently was working on the frog on Hole 12. "Yes, he and Sasha colored together. A picture of a frog. Anyway, the poem goes like this, just about, anyway:

I find myself within his eyes,  
And long for more myself to know.  
He hears, it seems, my silent cries,  
And makes my heart my reason's foe.  
How can this be to love so quickly?  
"Love does not wait," is his reply.  
What magic weaves his touch to treat me  
How can I now my love deny?"

Sarah finished and she felt her cheeks pink. She looked at Ginny hesitantly. But Ginny smiled at her, not scoffing, but in solidarity. "Yeah," she agreed quietly and intensely, "I get that. I really do."

Ginny turned to face Sarah. "So that was your knife in the bad guy's hand, Jessup?"

"Yes."

"I'm guessing there's a story there."

"Yes, an old one. Not one I'm proud of."

"I have stories like that. I once thought I would only have stories like that - until Matthew. Now, I have him, and I have Sasha, and…" she patted her abdomen, "a new little somebody who is going to join us."

"Matthew didn't know?"

"No, I had been planning to tell him yesterday, but...you folks showed up…"

"Sorry."

"Couldn't be helped."

"So, Boosinger?"

"She dispatched agents to find Foxworth. They found witnesses who say he went into FARMA around the time you two showed up at our place. He hasn't come out. But no _agent_ has actually seen him today."

"Is there a plan?"

Ginny seemed reluctant for a moment, then made a decision. "Yes, she wants me to go to FARMA tonight and root Foxworth out, alive, if possible. Assuming he doesn't leave. I think even with his shoulder, Matt can run the van for me, locks and video feeds, that sort of thing. Boosinger doesn't want to go in with numbers - too many ways this could backfire politically. And this is the sort of assignment Langston Graham trained me for, used me for. I'm good at it." There was zero pride in Ginny's tone, only resignation.

"I met him once, by the way. Langston Graham." Sarah wanted to match Ginny's confidence with one of her own. "Years ago."

Ginny looked at Sarah hard. "Really? Was this just a bump-into-by-accident thing?"

"No. He came looking for me. He tried to recruit me."

Ginny frowned deeply. "I heard he did that, but I never knew for sure. He must have been eager to recruit you if he left Langley to try it. He was like the Wizard of Oz, always behind the damned Curtain. And you said no? To the great and powerful Oz?"

"I had been living...in the margins...for a long time. I did not want to get stranded there. No offense."

Ginny held up both hands, palms toward Sarah. "Go, Sarah! No offense taken. Believe me, _I_ am no recruiter for my job. You did the right thing. Even if - _if_ \- there's a story to tell that morally justifies some things I've done," Ginny paused, taking stock, "it can't undo the personal damage they've done to me, lighten the load I carry, salve the hurt."

Ginny was quiet for a moment. "Matthew and Sasha and…" she dropped her hand to her abdomen again, "...and this newcomer...they are my attempt to redeem myself, repair myself, to find the woman, the human being, the job cost me. _Memento homo_. This job makes remembering that...all but impossible."

"But you are going to do it, you're going after Foxworth?"

"Yes, and I will bring him out alive as long as he is alive. And then that's it: I'm done. Matthew's work is done. The CIA or whoever gets the Intersect. We get the hell out of Tombstone. We find a permanent life somewhere far away from spies, from the Boot Hill of Langley. A good life, not one deformed by the Agency.

"Boosinger agreed - although I didn't quite explain it in those terms. But she knew it was coming if we could shake free of the Ring. Maybe tonight that finally happens. Take the head of the snake." Ginny looked hopeful.

Chuck and Matthew headed toward them, Matthew speeding up when he saw Ginny and saw that she was no longer on the phone. Morgan was still moving tires around on Hole 14.

Matthew arrived and put his hands on Ginny's arms, stared into her eyes. "Really?"

Her small grin became a satellite smile. "Really!" He hugged her hard and she hugged him back just as hard. "Look, I need to tell you about my conversation with Boosinger." She took Matthew's hand and they walked away to talk.

Sarah stepped to Chuck and took his hand. "Hey, are you okay? Everything with Jessup?"

He nodded tentatively. "I think so. It helps that he will make it. What about you? That was some knife throw - like you were a circus performer! There was even circus music and a clown - or the remains of a clown." Chuck got a daydreamy look in his eyes for a second, then returned. "But you're okay?"

She nodded, a bit tentative herself. "As you said, it helps that he will make it - and that he would have tried to kill you if he'd gotten to the gun.

"So, Chuck, are we done with this? I mean, we've solved the Sasha case, I guess, our part of it. And more or less solved Casey's - we helped, anyway. Are we done?"

Chuck glanced over at Ginny and Matthew. "What did Boosinger say to Ginny?" Sarah explained and Chuck listened. He looked at the Yema on his wrist. "So, she'll infiltrate FARMA in a few hours?"

"I'm not sure about the timetable. She said _tonight._ I assume it will be after business hours, probably after dark…"

"Sarah," Chuck began softly, a hint of pleading in his voice, "I want to go with her. I want to see this through to the end. It's my case or my cases...or my case…

"Anyway, I don't know how to count, but, still, _mine._ I need to finish. Close the book. I'm ready to take the shingle down after this, start the company we talked about. But, look, I've been thinking. I am almost sure that Jill got shot because she came to me, because she asked for my help.

"Maybe Bryce got caught in the blowback from that visit. I'm not sure. And I know - I didn't take the case. I didn't refuse it, either. And I feel sort of responsible - not because she was my girlfriend once, but because she asked for my help. I won't vouch for her motives, but she did ask. I want to help her, not as my _ex-girlfriend_ , but as my _quasi-client_."

Sarah bit her lip, thinking. She held Chuck's eyes with her own. "Two conditions. One, I go with you. And two, you make it clear that you understand I am not your client, I am your girlfriend."

Chuck smiled. "Where would I go without my Girl Friday? Especially since she is not my girlfriend…" Sarah's eyes widened, "...she's my fiancée." Before Sarah could respond, he dipped her back and kissed her in good earnest. After responding, she began to laugh into his lips.

When he un-dipped her, she put her hand on his cheek. "'Fiancée', that's a good word, Chuck." She gave her head a brief shake. "Everyone's going to say we're crazy, you know."

Chuck grew pensive over his grin. "Not everyone. Not Ellie. Not Morgan or Alex. Not Casey or Rhonda. I suppose _Jessup_ might say we are moving a little too fast…"

She smacked the cheek she had been holding her hand against. "Jessup doesn't get a say, buster. No one does, really, but you and me. And I said _yes._ "

He nodded, beaming. "What else did you and Ginny talk about?"

Sarah shrugged. "Movies."

Chuck gave her a flat look.

"No, really, Chuck."

"What movie?"

" _Dangerous Beauty_."

"So Sarah Walker and Ginny Wilmore were talking about a movie called _Dangerous Beauty_?"

"Yes." Sarah narrowed her eyes. "And?"

Chuck looked pained. "I have no idea how to go on from that without getting myself knifed or shot."

ooOoo

Chuck and Sarah were seated in the back of a van with Ginny and Matthew.

Matthew had his arm out of the sling and was gingerly typing on a computer. Chuck was looking with fascination over Matthew's shoulder. They'd been talking in 1's an 0's for about half an hour.

Sarah was showing Ginny her knives and talking a little about throwing technique. Ginny was not a knife girl, but she was eager to learn.

A voice on the radio broke the silence. "Okay, building lights are out. There's still a light on in the corner office, top floor. That's supposed to be Foxworth. Looks like you are good to go."

"Thanks, Eagle," Ginny said as she put in her earwig. Sarah and Chuck did so too.

Ginny spoke. "Keep watch on us. Professor's in the truck. You let anyone get near this truck but me or Chuck and Sarah, I will climb to you with my bare hands and tear yours from your body."

There was a long pause. "Roger," came the fuzzy response.

Matthew laughed. "The mother of my children."

Ginny shot him a daggered look.

"Sorry, sweetheart. And you be careful. Chuck, Sarah, you've got my world with you."

Ginny smiled at that and kissed Matthew.

Ginny: "I called Sasha earlier. She seems happy hanging out with Alex and Morgan, but I wanted her to know we miss her."

Matthew leaned down close to Ginny's ear. "Come back to me, Ginny." She gave him a single tight nod.

Ginny got out of the van and led Chuck and Sarah up the stairs. The van was parked in the basement garage of the building next to FARMA. They crossed the distance between the buildings and stopped at an emergency door on the side of FARMA.

Ginny attached a small device to the lock. "Okay, Matthew. Go." The device began to blink. A few seconds later, the tumblers of the lock turned. Ginny, Chuck, and Sarah heard Matthew: "Unlocked. Alarm disarmed. Go."

Chuck looked at the device as Ginny slipped it into her pocket. "Genius! Gotta make me one of those."

Ginny pulled the door open and they stepped inside. Ginny got out her gun. Chuck had his gun in his shoulder holster, but he left it there. He was wearing the holster over a dark sweatshirt. He had on black jeans and had a small laptop bag on his shoulder.

Sarah, dressed similarly, had her knives on her calf, Chuck knew (he needed to make himself stop imagining them), but she also had a combat knife on a belt around her waist. She had a tranq gun in a holster on the opposite side of the belt.

Ginny was outfitted much as Sarah, except for the knives. She also had a small backpack on her back. From behind the two of them, Chuck had the eerie feeling of moving along with Sarah (her blonde hair on the right) and Ginny (her black hair on the left), his love and her...shadow sister. For a second, Chuck's mind drifted to _Bewitched,_ to Samantha and Serena. He made himself focus.

It had not taken too much effort to convince Ginny to petition Boosinger for Chuck and Sarah to go on the op. Matthew had been very much in favor of it; he did not want Ginny going in alone. She was not able to refuse Matthew. She relented.

Boosinger's respect for Ginny made her willing to allow it. Being told that the new Intersect was ready helped. Chuck and Sarah had been read-in enough to allow their participation in the op. They already knew more than Boosinger would have liked, but that was how events had played out.

Ginny motioned for them to move. They hustled quietly down the long service hallway until they reached a door into the building proper. It was not locked. They went through it and to the elevator. Matthew had determined that the building's security cameras were confined to the top floor, Foxworth's floor. Even with Chuck's help, Matthew had not been able to hack into them. The hope was that Chuck could do it from inside the building.

Chuck had expected something else. They reached the elevator in the darkened building and faced no opposition. The building seemed empty, dead, very different than the days Chuck had been in it before. Chuck knelt down and opened the laptop bag. He worked quickly, isolating the security feed in for the cameras on the top floor.

For whatever reason, he was able to get into them. They showed the hallways of the top floor - dark and deserted - and the offices. All were dark except one, Foxworth's palatial corner office. But although it was lit up, lamps and desk lights on, no one seemed to be there. Chuck looked up at Sarah and Ginny. Ginny shrugged. "Up we go." Chuck cut the connection and stowed the laptop.

They got on the elevator and punched the button for the top floor. Ginny whipped the backpack off and grabbed something out of it. She saw Chuck and Sarah looking. "Flashbang, just in case. If I yell 'cover', close your eyes and put your hands over your ears. You'll probably still be affected, but not enough to be incapacitated." Her inflection was flat, precise, economical. She put the backpack back on her shoulders and stood watching the ascending numbers, flashbang in one hand, silver gun in the other.

Chuck felt Sarah's hand close around his, warm. He relaxed a little. With his other hand, he got his gun from his holster. He could not remember the last time he had handled the thing so much in so short a time. He didn't like it.

The elevator dinged its arrival at the top floor, the sound striking Chuck like the gonging of a great bell, announcing their arrival. The doors opened and Ginny was immediately through them, gun up. After a moment, she told them to come on. The top floor hallway was dark too. But there was a light showing beneath the door of Foxworth's office. They crept slowly toward it, Ginny leading the way, Sarah behind her, and Chuck in the rear, checking behind them as they moved forward. They got to the door and Ginny stopped. She checked the door carefully, scanning the frame, the knob. She opened the door.

Inside, everything was as the video feed had shown it to be. Lit, palatial, empty. Ginny and Chuck quickly swept the office - besides the main room, there was a bathroom and even a small bedroom - but there was nothing. The desktop was a mess, a jumble of papers. Chuck looked at several, but they just seemed to be FARMA paperwork of a pointless administrative kind.

"Chuck!" Sarah whispered pointed at a picture behind the desk. One side of it was extended from the wall. Chuck went over and examined it. It was hooked to the wall on one side by hinges. He examined it carefully but quickly, then opened it. It rotated out to reveal a panel with what looked like an elevator call button. Chuck looked first at Sarah then at Ginny. Neither stopped him, so he pushed the button. A panel in the wall slid back, and there was an elevator, small and gleaming. Ginny stepped on, followed by Sarah and Chuck. There was one button inside.

Ginny shrugged and pushed it, whispering as she did. "Down the rabbit hole."

ooOoo

The elevator dropped for an eternity. It seemed that way to Sarah. She was getting more anxious, filled more with a vague foreboding. She had found Chuck, found the prospect of a new life. They were together. She wanted to put her knives back in the closet and go back to her kids. (Sarah had called in sick early in the morning as they drove from the desert back into LA. She had already called in to tell them she would not be in tomorrow.)

She recognized that she could do what Ginny was doing, could have lived the life Ginny lived, but she also knew it was not in her nature to do it. She looked at Chuck, and then at Ginny, and then thought again of Langston Graham's offer.

 _I chose wisely._

The elevator finally stopped. Ginny and Chuck beside her, Sarah waited for the door to open.

Waited. Waited.

It slid back silently, opening upon a nightmare.

* * *

 **A/N1** And one final cliffhanger, just for kicks...Tune in next time for Chapter 25, "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots". Foxworth and FARMA.

Thoughts? Drop me a line, please.


	25. Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots

**A/N1** This chapter and one more. The next one will be (informally) an epilogue.

This one gets off to an...interesting start.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 _Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots_

* * *

The elevator doors opened….

….revealing a scene from _World War Z_.

Sarah heard Ginny gasp and Chuck groan. Sarah made no sound; her throat was closed; she was choking.

Beneath a few flickering fluorescent lights, bodies were strewn in dumbfounding disarray, a horrific counterpart of the scene in Sarah's kindergarten classroom at naptime, like when this all got started. But these were corpses - Big Sleepers, not little sleepers - and they were not arranged in neat lines but bizarrely oriented in different directions, some face-up _,_ some face-down, some faceless ( _Dear God!)_ ; there were a few detached body parts strewn among the strewn corpses. Blood pooled the floor and gore spattered the walls…

And there were soulless, shuffling...bodies...now coming toward them.

Reanimated.

Ginny raised her gun to fire, terror on her face, but Chuck knocked her arm down. "No, Ginny, no...Look! People, not monsters."

The bloodied bodies approaching were all clothed, at least those who were clothed, in hospital gowns. Men, women, young and old. It was a group of maybe eight. Their eyes were mad, glazed and psychotic. Crazy - but not zombies. Not zombies, but at that moment they broke into a shuffling run, as if obedient to some inaudible command.

"Ginny," Chuck yelled, "your tranq gun!" Fast as thought, Ginny changed weapons. She fired into the group and three went down before the other five were upon them.

The next few moments eluded coherent description. _Claws_ , hands, _fangs_ , teeth, _howls and feral cries_ , and gasps and guttural moans. Sarah fought in any way that she could, every way she could, overwhelmed, overwhelmed, overwhelmed - fists and feet, fists and feet, fists and feet. Punch, kick, punch, kick. Shove. Dodge.

She saw Chuck out of the corner of her eyes, also punching and kicking, spinning and ducking. Ginny had gone down beneath two large men, and they were tearing savagely at her.

Sarah got free of her attackers and dove on the back of one atop Ginny, a massive African-American man. He stood up with her on his shoulders, his hands punching and ripping at her. Chuck dove on the other man and the two of them went rolling across the blood-puddled floor.

Sarah heard Matthew in her ear. "Someone tell….som...ing! Wha...happen...? Where are...? Shit! …" The audio feed broke up into unintelligibility. Sarah struck down with all her strength on the man clawing at her, and he stumbled under the blow, slipped on the bloody floor and slammed to his knees.

Ginny was up. She fired into the man whose shoulders Sarah was on, then she turned precisely and fired into the man grappling with Chuck. She turned and fired three more times before the remaining three could reach her or Sarah or Chuck.

And it was over.

There were moans coming from the tranqed attackers as they all sank into torpor. Sarah could hear her own gasping, part exertion, part animal terror. She heard the same coming from Ginny and Chuck.

The next thing she knew, she was in Chuck's arms and he was patting her hair, whispering endearments randomly into her ear. She clung to him as her heart rate began to sink and her terror abate. She could feel his heart, hammering a moment before, slowing now against her.

"What the hell, Chuck?" Ginny. "What the _hell_?"

Chuck kept Sarah in his arms but lifted his head and turned toward Ginny, who was replacing tranqs in her gun. "The homeless folks Casey mentioned. This is them, or what remains of them. They've been...experimented on, Ginny. They're psychotic, drugged and crazed. They aren't responsible for what they are doing."

Ginny scanned the room, her lips settling into a sickened frown. "But Matthew's old program never did anything like this."

"No, this is FARMA's evil version of that, dark and cold and drug-addled."

Mentioning Matthew's name made Ginny start patting her ear, her earwig. "Matthew, Matthew, can you hear me?" After a moment, she gave up. "Nothing. I need to tell him we're okay. He's got to be frantic."

Chuck nodded and went to retrieve the computer bag that had come off in the attack. It dripped blood as he picked it up. Grimacing, he unzipped it. He grabbed the laptop. After a few seconds of furious typing, he looked at Ginny. "I can send him a message. What should I tell him?"

"Just tell him...we're okay." She glanced down at her abdomen, covered by partial, bloody handprints but otherwise uninjured, "we're all okay. And...tell him I love him."

Chuck nodded and typed away. "Big pink heart emoji?"

Ginny bared her teeth - but not in a smile. Chuck ducked his head and continued to type.

As Chuck did that, Ginny walked to the wall and hit the light switch. The fluorescent lights stabilized as the main room lights also came on.

The lights made everything better - and worse.

The carnage, no longer enshadowed, did not seem supernatural; but the carnage, now lit up, was clearly visible and unnatural. After a blinking second, it became obvious that the corpses belonged to two groups: the homeless experiment victims - and _their_ victims.

There were nine homeless among the dead, as well as four others, three men in baggy suits and one man in a beautifully tailored one: the latter, Foxworth, the former, and his Ring goons. It had been a fierce fight, not long, likely, but bloody. Ginny rounded up three handguns and a machete. They had no idea why it was there, but it accounted for the detached body parts, and it must have been in various hands at various points in the battle.

The Ring goons had shot several of the homeless - but, from what could be made of the scene, their bullets, unless immediately fatal, had been less effective than Ginny's tranqs. The Ring agents and Foxworth had been overwhelmed, although they had killed many before they died themselves.

Chuck, done communicating with Matthew, joined them in assessing the scene. "I went ahead and briefly told Matthew what we found. He's contacting the ambulance and the black van guys."

Sarah went to the group Ginny tranqed and began to check them for wounds that needed attention. Ginny helped her, removing a first aid kit from her backpack.

Not sure what else to do, Chuck reluctantly rolled two corpses off of Foxworth's corpse. Beneath it, he found a briefcase. Inside it was a stack of files and a laptop. He showed the open briefcase to Sarah and Ginny, then he took the briefcase to the table, removed the laptop, and opened it. He went to work. He stared up at the ceiling.

"Hmmm….if I was Foxworth, what would my password be?" He stared for a moment, then shook his head. He typed. The laptop beeped to life.

Sarah looked up from bandaging an unconscious boy's arm. "You figured it out, first try?" There was pride in her voice. Chuck nodded. "So, what was it?"

"'Foxworth.'"

"I know, but what was his password?"

"No, sweetheart, that's the narcissistic bastard's password, his own damn name."

"You've got to be kidding..."

Chuck looked around them grimly. "Not really the time or place for kidding, even for me." He was typing machine-gun fashion, commenting absently to himself: "Narcissus. Pool. Self-reflection...'I' is a palindrome, both orthographically and psychologically...Bastard."

Ginny broke in. She was swabbing a cut on an unconscious woman's forearm. "Find anything on there?"

"It's encrypted. It'll probably take me...Oh, nope, got it, there it is. Hmmm. Well, well, well…"

"Chuck?" Ginny demanded.

"Give me a few minutes to decide what I am looking at."

ooOoo

Ginny motioned for Sarah to keep an eye on Chuck and then walked toward the far end of the long room. They had bandaged and done the triage they could do. At the far end was a door. Sarah watched Ginny's progress.

The end of the room that Sarah and Chuck occupied was lab space; the other end, the one Ginny was now in, was _cell space_ : there were two long, low glass cages, one along each wall, a pathway between leading to the door.

Inside the cages, on the ground, were stained and rumpled bedrolls. Outside each were stacks of metal serving trays and a tower of buckets. It took Sarah a minute to understand the presence of the buckets, and when she did, she recoiled. The homeless had been treated like dogs in a shelter, probably not that well.

Sarah watched, puzzled, as Ginny looked carefully at the door of one of the glass cages, then the other before she went on. She exited the door on the far end.

Sarah reoriented on Chuck, but he was in a computing trance, working feverishly and raptly on Foxworth's laptop. Sarah tried not to look at the corpses or at the gleaming silver tables, with straps for arms and legs, scenes of actions she refused to contemplate. She stood and gazed at Chuck for a while, just doing so making her feel better, grounded. Safe.

The door on the far end opened and Ginny returned. She quickly walked back to Sarah and Chuck.

"The doorway leads to a long hallway. There are small rooms along both sides and a lounge, I'm guessing for lab workers, since I doubt folks came and went from here freely, even the ones uncaged. A large kitchen and supply room. There're showers, like at a high school gym." Ginny grimaced but quickly covered it. "The hallway leads to a service elevator. It takes you up to the loading dock. It is craftily concealed; I'll give them that. Hard to find from above and I had just gotten out of it. That's how they get supplies and...the kidnapped down here." She frowned disgustedly, wearily.

"Oh, I called Matthew while I was up there. Cleaners are almost here, and paramedics. Same basic drill as at the golf course." Ginny blew out a breath, her keyed-up, ultra-aware bearing slowly disappearing. "What a day! From clown heads to zombies. Weird day for a spy, more for a PI, still more for a kindergarten teacher...You know, for a second there, I thought a Stephen King-wannabe had taken over the story and wrested it from the Chandler- or Le Carre- or Lewis Carroll-wannabe hack who's obviously writing it."

Ginny paused and shook her head. She sighed with exhaustion. "I'm starving. I know, I know. But I'm a pregnant woman; I could eat anywhere, as I am about to prove..." She produced a granola bar from her backpack and snapped into it with relish. She extended the bitten bar toward Chuck and Sarah. Neither could think of eating; they waved it off politely.

Shrugging, Ginny studied Chuck as she crunched noisily. He had stopped typing. "So, what did you find, Chuck," Ginny asked around her bite of granola bar.

Chuck took a moment, then answered. "The Ring."

ooOoo

They were out of the building.

The cleaners and paramedics had taken over. An agent specifically tasked by Boosinger showed up to claim Foxworth's laptop. Chuck and Matt had been tinkering with it for a little while, chattering like squirrels. At a certain point, Matthew had taken over; Chuck was watching closely.

Matthew and Chuck gave the laptop up, and Foxworth's briefcase, and watched them both get into a car under the arm of Boosinger's agent. Two other agents were in the car, providing extra security. Ginny and Matthew seemed unconcerned, so Chuck stopped worrying about it. He turned to Ginny. He had his arm around Sarah's waist, her warmth against him a comfort.

Chuck finally took a moment. He let go of Sarah, shook his head and stomped his feet. "Shit. Shit. Shit. What _happened_ down there before we arrived? That was some freaky _Shaun of the Dead_ stuff. How did it happen?"

"The door to one of the cells was broken. Don't know how. But the drugged victims got out and opened the other cell door…. My best guess is that Foxworth and his guards were going to sneak out of the building, that Foxworth was going to run. A car is out near the loading dock. When they got off the elevator, the victims attacked them. It must've been a hellish scene...scratch that, we know it was a hellish scene, we lived through a version of it.

"The people Foxworth kidnapped and destroyed ended up destroying him and delivering the Ring to us. I'm not saying that makes it okay, it sure as hell doesn't…" Matthew took her hand and she gave him a hard look that softened into a smile. "The ones who attacked us, the ones I tranqed, they're getting medical attention. Matthew will see if he can help the doctors, give them some idea of what they are up against."

"Look, Chuck, Sarah - Matthew and I are going to downplay your contributions to all this. Not because we want to steal glory - not sure there's really any glory here to steal - but because we want to protect you. Sarah told me that Langston Graham recruited her once," Matthew looked shocked for a second, then re-looked at Sarah, and the shock vanished, "and Chuck is obviously Matthew's peer as a programmer. That means Boosinger will be... _interested_ in you if we reveal too much. Let us take the lead in the debrief and stick with our story. It will be the truth, with a few omissions."

ooOoo

Chuck, Sarah, and Ginny cleaned up as much as they could. The black van guys, the cleaners, helped Chuck wash the blood off himself, and they had clothes that fit him in the van. Once Chuck was dressed, the three of them, plus Matthew, were debriefed by Boosinger. Video conference in the van. She turned out to be a thin, angular, grey-haired woman, all business but not unpleasant.

The laptop and files were on their way to her at Langley. She seemed to think, given what Matthew told her, that the Ring was going to be reduced nearly to nothing by what they had found. It was not just that the CIA now knew the identity of Ring agents, including moles still in the Agency, they also had a financial map of the organization and could shut down its real life-blood, money. When the conference ended, Boosinger made it clear that she was saying goodbye, unofficially, to Matthew and Ginny. Sarah and Chuck excused themselves from that moment.

ooOoo

As they got out of the van, Chuck's phone beeped. He had a message from Casey.

 _Odd, he normally texts. One word grunts._ _Or Old Yeller gifs._

Something had come up that was keeping Casey at work, but he wanted to know what was going on; his voice sounded strange - not bad, necessarily, but strange. He promised Chuck he'd get back in touch as soon as he could.

ooOoo

Chuck and Sarah got a ride from Matthew and Ginny back to Sarah's Porsche. They all made plans to meet again before Matthew and Ginny left town. All four were exhausted. Matthew and Ginny were going to pick up Sasha and then head to a CIA safe house for the night.

Sarah drove to Echo Park. Chuck asked her to spend the night there, and she happily agreed. He wanted her to see his place, Ellie's place, and he wanted to tell Ellie the news with Sarah there.

When they went inside, they were met immediately by a frazzled Ellie. "Chuck, Sarah! Thank God! I've been worried about you, baby brother. I did what you wanted: I didn't call or text." She looked at Sarah. "PI rules. PI's don't get calls from 'Mom'. But you headed to Sarah's Sunday afternoon, Chuck. It is now almost Tuesday." She stopped and looked Chuck up and down. "And whose clothes are those? They're not yours?" She looked at Sarah. "Sarah, what's going on? You both look exhausted and...battered. What happened?" Ellie grabbed Sarah's hand, giving her a laser-intensity stare.

Sarah sent Chuck a panicked glance. He pulled her to him gently. He responded to Ellie. "Look, Sis, we're both exhausted; you're right. We need a shower and maybe something to eat? We'll talk over food, after we've cleaned up?"

Ellie nodded, clutch engaged and visibly downshifting. She asked, "Sarah, do you have anything to wear?" The question was softer than the earlier ones.

Sarah shook her head.

"I have extra.. _pj_ 's?" Ellie's inflection rose on the final word; she was not going to assume Sarah would spend the night.

Sarah smiled. "Sounds wonderful. I really want to get out of these clothes and get Chuck out of those…"

Ellie started to laugh. Sarah tried to explain. "I just mean those clothes are horrible. He'd look so much better out of them." Ellie laughed harder. "I mean I want him...I want...His underwear is better...Oh, I give up." Chuck was now laughing too. Sarah joined in their laughter. It was funny - and she was too tired to try any more explanations.

Chuck took her hand. "C'mon, let's get a shower."

Sarah balked. "The two of us? _One_ shower? You're asking? At the same time? In front of your sister," Sarah bubbled incoherently as Chuck pulled her toward his bedroom. She heard Ellie laughing happily behind her.

Inside his room, Chuck undressed Sarah with deft care. At one point, there was a knock on the door; it opened, a hand thrust through the narrow opening, a hand full of pj's.

Chuck took them and shut the door, folding them on the bed. He shed his own clothes. He put a robe on Sarah and one on himself, then led her out of the room and into the bathroom.

She had been so engrossed in him undressing her and him undressing that she had hardly looked at his room. As they had left it, she had glanced around quickly, and as they went into the bathroom, she giggled. He shut the bathroom door. "What?"

"You really are a _Tron_ boy. I like the poster." Chuck turned on the water. A few moments later, steam was rolling out of the shower.

He dropped his robe and took her hand, stepping under the water and gently tugging her into the shower. He pulled her against him and beneath the spray and they stood together under the hot water for a long, quiet time, holding each other and their promises to each other, and letting go of the darknesses of the past two days.

* * *

Tuesday, April 4, wee hours

* * *

Later, they were seated at the table with Ellie. Devon was working a night shift at the hospital. Chuck and Sarah had each wolfed down two sandwiches and drank two glasses of milk. They were both finishing with brownies Ellie made while they showered and changed.

Chuck had told Ellie about what had happened - the CIA-approved abridgment. She had listened to that, aghast. But she had also been proud, proud of Chuck, proud of Sarah, and proud of them together. And of Casey and Rhonda. When he finished, she looked at the two of them, her index finger on one hand tapping the table softly, keeping time with her thinking.

"But there is something you two haven't told me. You both look like you have a secret. I want to know what it is."

Chuck opened his mouth to tell her when Sarah jumped the line, her eyes glowing: "Chuck proposed. I said _yes._ "

For a moment, time stopped. Ellie's finger hovered in mid-tap.

And then she had Sarah in a boa-constrictor hug. "I knew it! I knew you two were perfect for each other! I knew it! Show me the ring!"

Sarah shot another panicked glance at Chuck.

"I...uh...I didn't have it when I proposed," Chuck mumbled.

Ellie turned disbelieving eyes on him. "Chuck Bartowski! I've saved Mom's ring all this time…" She ran from the kitchen, down the hallway. Chuck looked at Sarah and started to say something when Ellie charged back in, a small, red and velvet box in her hand.

"Here, Chuck, make this right," Ellie ordered.

"Ellie," Sarah interjected, finally catching up with the proceedings, "it's okay. None of this was planned. And Chuck did give me something for our engagement." Ellie looked expectantly at Sarah. Sarah explained: "He gave me a car seat. You know, for a child."

Ellie rocketed to the ceiling, over the moon. It took Chuck and Sarah a long time to get her to understand.

ooOoo

Still later, they snuggled warmly in Chuck's bed. They wished they could make love but they were both too tired and the feeling of togetherness was enough. Sarah giggled, feeling warm and drowsy. "Do you think Ellie finally understood that I am not pregnant."

"Yeah, yeah, I think she finally did. After all, she's a doctor and reasonably good at math. There's hardly been time for that to have happened and us to have discovered it, and that would be true if we had...you know, on the first date."

"Right. But you know, about that first date. Even then, I woulda kinda...liked to….even if I didn't admit it to myself..."

"Why, Miss Walker, and you an educator, a bright and shining example to the knife-wielding, ninjagarten teachers of tomorrow…"

She burrowed closer against him. "I'm going to put the knives away, Chuck."

He was quiet for a minute. "Um...Do you think you could get them out once in a while, when it's just us, you know, just to keep me in practice?"

"Keep _you_ in practice?" She could feel rather than see his eyebrows dancing. "You big goof."

"Oh, and while we're at it. That little black dress…."

"What about it?"

"Do you promise that I am the only one who will get to see you in it? I don't think I can stand the thought of anyone else seeing you in it."

"Jealous?"

"A skoosh, a smidgen, a mite…"

"A mite?"

"I'll have you know, I am a walking thesaurus."

"I thought that was Barney - the beat cop."

"No, he's a walking _dinosaurus_ …"

"Chuck, there's no such word. You're worse than my kids. Oh, and about the dress. Yes, I promise. Gladly. Only you will see me in it...or out of it. Now, get some sleep, sweetie, I'm planning on you seeing me out of it in the morning, and responding vigorously to what you see. I have the day off and you, Chuck, are self-employed."

"Mmmmhmmmm. Okay, Sarah. But don't go to sleep yet.."

Sarah was almost asleep, her eyes closed. She whispered her response. "What, Chuck?" Dreams were beginning to enfold her.

She felt his hand gentle on her left hand, then his fingers soft on her ring finger; she felt him slip a ring - the ring - onto it. She clutched his hand with hers, her eyes still closed. _My fiancé_. She was dreaming awake, and falling, falling asleep. Her hand slowly released his.

Pause. Pause. Pause.

"Sarah, you've forgotten one thing: me."

Called back, she opened her eyes just a little. She recognized the line. _The Big Sleep._ Chuck as Vivian Rutledge.

Sarah pulled Chuck even closer to her. Sarah as Philip Marlowe. "And what's wrong with you?"

She could hear joy and confidence in his sleepy words as his hand settled around her hand, her ring, his hand home for hers. "Nothing you can't fix."

* * *

 **A/N1** Gotta love those two.

Remember, I have been calling this a _Noir Farce_. Consider the opening of this chapter the final installment of _Noir_ , Intersect-style.

Sunny epilogue-ish final chapter to follow in the next few days or so. Still some questions to answer, some business to be done. By the way, for those interested, there may be a new MisEd chapter soon.

Thoughts? Reactions?

Thanks, everyone!

 _World War Z._


	26. Clue

**A/N1** So this is it. Final chapter.

Thanks for reading, reviewing and PM-ing. I'd enjoy hearing your parting thoughts if you have any to share.

Don't own _Chuck_. And I am almost done writing that.

* * *

 **Chutes and Ladders**

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 _Clue_

* * *

Tuesday, April 3

* * *

Chuck did his best to stifle the scream. He heard Sarah stifle hers. Then she fell forward.

Onto his bed. Chuck fell forward across her bare backside, spent, empty...absolutely full of her. They were trying to be quiet. Devon was asleep after his night shift at the hospital.

Chuck rubbed his hand across Sarah's bare shoulders, rearranging the spray of blonde hair, caressing her. She moaned softly and her whole body shook. Again. When the shaking passed, she turned her face toward him. "You, Chuck Bartowski, make all of me an erogenous zone. Head to toe, all points between."

She started to twist toward him, to turn over, and he lifted himself off her, aligning himself beside her. She turned. Now on her back, she put one hand on his cheek. They were both flushed and still panting. She leaned up and kissed him on the lips, a kiss that promised more once she had a moment to catch her breath, once the most serious aftershocks had passed.

Chuck's phone rang. As he stretched out toward the nightstand to pick it up, he noted the time.

11:23 am.

They had slept late and then been wholly preoccupied with each other. They hadn't left his bedroom. He looked at the phone. _Casey_. Chuck turned to Sarah and put out his hand toward her, holding up his index finger, indicating that he would need a second. She leaned toward his hand and sucked his finger into her mouth, her tongue rolling around it. His eyes rolled back in his head.

"So _not_ helping, Sarah...and I am so going to hold you to that." She grinned around his finger and then released it.

"Turnabout is fair play," she promised. Sighing and shaking his head, he stood as he answered the phone, his _Hello_ accompanied by Sarah's low, throaty giggle.

"What's up, Casey? Yes, yes, um, I _am_ up." Giggles. "Lunch? Well, for us it would be more brunch, but sure. I could eat." Sarah giggled again at that. "Where? Really? At _Go Fork Yourself_?" Another fit of giggles. "Rhonda's coming? Okay. See you soon."

He ended the call and looked at his naked fiancé draped across his bed, her body still flushed, her giggles just subsiding.

"So," Sarah observed, trying to be serious, "we have a lunch date?"

Chuck nodded. She asked: "When?"

"An hour."

Sarah glanced at the ceiling as if calculating. "I think we have time."

She sat up, continued forward onto her hands and knees, and crawled across the bed toward him, her blue eyes suddenly unspeakably intense, a stalking tigress. Chuck grinned even as he trembled.

He would be happily mauled.

ooOoo

Despite the lunchtime crowd - a handful of people that Chuck could see through the window - Billy Powell was out in front of the cafe, smoking. Chuck parked the Crown Vic and shut it off. It shook violently, spectacularly, rattling, rattling. Then it backfired like a canon, shaking one final time. Sarah started laughing softly. Chuck blushed.

"That didn't sound good, not good at all."

Sarah nodded. "I don't mean to laugh, but it felt a little like she is _jealous_ …"

"She?"

"Well, of course, Vic, _Victoria_ , is a lady…"

"Huh. I guess so. You think she noticed your ring."

Sarah nodded and leaned toward him. "I suspect so."

Laughing, they got out of the car. Billy studied them from inside a blue cloud of smoke. When they got to the sidewalk he ventured a comment. "I got an old bugle inside, Chuck. Should I play taps later?" He pointed with the orange end of his cigarette at the Crown Vic. "Not sure she's gonna start again. That sounded like a death rattle."

Chuck shrugged, glancing back with fond worry at his boat of a car. "Nah, she's got nine lives, that one."

Billy did not look convinced, but he changed topics. "So, did you finish those final cases?"

"Yeah, Billy, I did. _We_ did."

"Oh, good! So, she's your partner now?"

Chuck smiled at Sarah, his best smile. "She sure is." Sarah squeezed his hand. "You have the big table in the back open, Billy?"

Billy nodded. "Yeah, usual lunch crowd, a few business folks, and a few loners. Be nice to have some love in the place."

Billy threw his cigarette down and turned to open the door. Chuck stepped on the cigarette and ground it out. He and Sarah went inside.

Billy asked them. "How many?"

Chuck mentally listed everyone coming again. Casey and Rhonda. They had gotten a call from Matthew and Ginny on the way to the cafe; they were coming, and bringing Sasha. Casey had texted to say that Alex and Morgan were coming too.

"Nine. Eight and a half. Eight and a booster seat."

Billy's eyebrows went up. "A crowd. Great! I'll see that the buffet is full and hot." He led them to the large round table and then headed into the kitchen. Sarah looked around. "A self-service cafe. That's, um, interesting."

Chuck laughed. "Billy's interesting. He doesn't think I know it, but he actually owns the whole strip mall. He's my landlord. He's kept my rent low enough for me to stay in business."

Billy came back out to the table. He had a single cupcake on a platter. A small, brightly colored candle burned atop the chocolate frosting. He put it on the table. "Thought you two might want to celebrate your...partnership." Billy winked and walked away.

Sarah smiled at Chuck, her best smile, and blew out the candle.

ooOoo

"Miss Walkerrr! Miss Walkerrr!"

Matthew and Ginny arrived first, Sasha in tow. When Matthew put her down, she sprinted the final distance to the table. She got to Sarah and climbed up into her lap, giving her a big hug.

Then Sasha reached for Chuck. "Mr. Chuck!" He took her and gave her a hug while Matthew and Ginny sat down. They looked tired but happy. In fact, that seemed to be true of everyone at the table, except Sasha - she was happy but not tired.

Billy arrived with silverware and napkins, glasses of ice water. He grabbed the plate with the cupcake crumbs. He looked around the table, then stood for a second, his head ping-ponging between Chuck and Sarah and Matthew and Ginny. He looked puzzled and then left, whistling long and tunelessly, shaking his head.

"So," Ginny said, " _engaged_ , huh?"

Sarah jumped a bit in her seat. She glanced at Ginny. Ginny shrugged. Matthew spoke. "Spy, remember. Try living with her everyday. Especially around birthdays or holidays."

Ginny laughed and kissed Matthew's cheek gently. "Sorry, honey, but I don't know if we will ever see spy-to-eye on surprises." Matthew put on a face of arch glumness. Sasha saw it and giggled, causing Matthew to laugh too.

"Daddy gave Mommy a surprise party one time. They were very quiet after the people left." Sasha shrugged and everyone laughed.

Ginny admired Sarah's ring and proper congratulations were shared around the table - Chuck and Sarah's engagement, Matthew and Ginny's pregnancy - and the atmosphere grew festive.

Chuck dug into his coat and got his wire-bound notebook and green putt-putt pencil out. While Sarah talked with Matthew and Ginny in general terms about their plans, Chuck drew the outline of a frog on one of the pages, tore it out, and handed it, the notebook and the pencil to Sasha.

"Can you draw one?"

Sasha smiled, nodding, and took the notebook and pencil. She looked at the pencil. "I like this. It's my size."

Chuck grinned. "Then you keep it. I have lots."

Sasha beamed. She put her head down close to the paper and her tongue between her teeth, she started drawing, her concentration intense.

ooOoo

Alex and Morgan arrived. Chuck watched as Morgan sat down on the other side of Sasha. After greeting the adults, Morgan looked at the black-haired little girl. "Hey, Sasha, watcha drawing?"

"A frog!" She turned the notebook toward Morgan.

"That's good! I wish I could draw like that."

Sasha extended the pencil to Morgan. "Wanna try one?"

He took the pencil, then noticed it. He looked at it more closely. _A clue_. "Where did you get this, Sasha?"

"Mr. Chuck gave it to me. He said he has lots." Morgan rotated his head toward Chuck, recognition in his eyes. "Oh, he does, does he?"

Chuck quickly turned to Alex. "What's up with your dad? I got a cryptic voicemail from him last night and then the invitation for this morning…"

Alex put her hands out, palms up. "We don't know. Rhonda called and invited us to come. I guess we will find out." Alex looked at everyone carefully. "So, you guys are all okay. I don't know exactly what was up yesterday or last night, but I know it was...serious."

Chuck nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, it was. But we…

"Sarah!" Alex burst out, shouting. "A ring?"

Sarah blushed. Alex went on, loudly, excitedly. "I guess the Tall, Dick and Curly is off the menu?" The other patrons turned to the table, trying to figure out that comment.

Sarah scooched down in her chair a little. But she smiled at Alex. "Yes, absolutely off the menu. I'm the only one who gets to taste it…" her blush became furiously red, "I mean...I am the only one who makes it...Oh, I give up. I _suck_ at explaining. - Tell me I did not just say _that_?"

The table laughed in unison, including Sasha, who did not understand, but who was enjoying seeing her teacher so flustered.

ooOoo

Casey and Rhonda showed up next. Rhonda was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Casey looked like something the Cat drug in.

They took the final two seats. Sarah introduced Rhonda to Matthew and Ginny. She shook their hands with respect and pleasure. "Good to know you both." The grin remained on her face.

Chuck looked around the table. He felt so happy in the moment. If Ellie and Devon had been there, the round table would have been complete. Still, it was wonderful. _Wonderful_. But Chuck was concerned about Casey, Casey's hangdog look.

"So, Casey, what's going on?"

"I've got news. Quite a bit of it." He looked at Sasha, who was drawing again. "I'll try to tell it all in a G-rated way." He paused for a breath, waited for the adults to attend to him, then started.

"I talked to Matthew and Ginny late last night, so they know some of this. Morgan, Alex, some of this won't make much sense. I'll explain what I can later.

"So. First, the drums in the desert did not all have you-know-whats inside, but several did. Tests on the first few reveal that they are among the missing homeless. Evidently, FARMA decided to double-down on their illegal dumping.

Besides keeping watch on the Wilmores, Perry and Shaw were involved in and oversaw the recent dumping. We think they took the...people...from the lab to the warehouse and put them in the drums there before trekking out to the desert. The hole we saw was meant to get covered over soon and a new one dug.

"Perry's confessed to it all. Shaw's got nothing to say, but he keeps demanding to see Ginny." Casey peered at Ginny and she shook her head, then snuck a glance at Matthew, whose face betrayed an old hurt, but one that had evidently healed. He smiled at his wife.

"Second. I went and visited _legal sk_ …" Casey noticed Sasha, " _Jill Roberts_ this morning. She is going to make it. She'll face some serious rehab - but she's lucky. An inch to one side and she would have been dead instantly. She gave a statement. Given her description of her attacker, we believe it was one of the Foxworth men you found at FARMA.

"The gun was planted, obviously. We found copies of your fingerprints, Chuck, the ones on file at the station when you got your PI license, in Jessup's desk. We think he gave them a copy or something and they used some spy sh...spy tricks to recreate the prints on the weapon. Their hope was to get you out of the way by pinning the...you know what...on you. Can't say I think Foxworth or his bunch were exactly criminal masterminds. Foxworth was no Moriarty. But if you have enough money, maybe you don't need much frontal lobe development, right, _Dr. Watson?_ " Casey gave Chuck a twisted grin.

"Larkin's being investigated as we speak. From what I have been able to gather - Perry knew a little about it and confessed it too - Larkin was trying to allow Foxworth and FARMA to operate without actually becoming part of their operations. You know, sorta like a doctor who is willing to let a patient die but not to kill the patient. Be passive, not active. Mitigate responsibility, I guess. But it got Larkin actively…" Casey dropped his voice, "... _killed_."

"Perry told me that Foxworth found out, from Shaw who was tailing her, that Roberts visited you, Chuck, and they decided she needed to go, Larkin too. Shaw had some kind of directional mike and he heard what Roberts asked you. They were worried she might start giving up secrets. She went to you because she figured out, although she won't say how, that Foxworth had ties to...well, you know. Foxworth found out that was true, and he thought she was getting _less...enamored_ of him, so he wanted to eliminate Roberts, Larkin and you, Chuck, all in one go."

Casey stopped for a minute. "I'd like to have gotten a chance to talk to that pri...idiot, Larkin."

Chuck smiled a tight, funereal smile. "I know a guy who can do a seance, Casey, talk to the dead, he's got a glowing red crystal ball…"

Casey shot Chuck a puzzled look but went on. "So, that's the story on that. Roberts made me promise I would tell you that she wants to see you, Chuck. So I just did."

Chuck looked at Sarah. She smiled at him.

"But that's not all the news, Casey," Rhonda said, her continuing grin growing larger.

Casey shifted in his seat. "No, no it's not. Um...Turns out, the interim captain was really _interim._ As of this morning, I am the new police captain, although I have not yet been officially installed. Evidently, the folks at the top got a call from the folks above the top recommending me for the job." Chuck noticed a glance between Matthew and Ginny. "So I got the offer and...I guess...I accepted."

Rhonda jumped in. "Yes, he accepted. And the salary increase means two things. One, I can quit my job and do what I've wanted to do for a while…"

Alex spoke in disbelief. "You mean come in with me, buy another truck, grow the business?"

Rhonda nodded happily at Alex. "Yes, I've had enough of guns and bad guys. And I like the thought of Casey's shapely ass behind a desk when it isn't in my han…" She stopped. Sasha. "Besides, Casey hasn't done it yet, but he's gonna give me a personal promotion soon...That's the second thing." She waved her left hand in the air suggestively, humming Bob Marley.

Casey was staring at the floor, red-faced, but he looked up long enough to grin, resigned but also happy, at Rhonda.

Alex went on. "That's so great! Both things. I couldn't be happier. About all of it. For both of you. And, hey, Chuck and Sarah have news too!"

Sarah shared her hand with Rhonda and the table erupted into multiple congratulations again.

Chuck leaned over to Sarah's ear as the hubbub went on around them. "See, no one at this table thinks we're crazy."

Somehow, Sasha overheard. " _I_ think Mr. Chuck is crazy." She grinned at him.

Everyone heard; everyone laughed. Eventually, they headed to the buffet to help themselves.

As they reached the buffet, Morgan sidled up to Chuck and asked to borrow a pencil.

* * *

Late Spring

* * *

It turned out that Sarah had a lot of money in banks. It had all been collecting interest steadily but remained untouched. Sarah and Chuck kept enough to start the business, then donated the rest anonymously to various homeless shelters in LA.

Matthew was able to help them and he wanted to be involved. From the distance (Chuck and Sarah were unsure where exactly the Wilmore's were), he worked on programming with Chuck and he made resources from Wilmore Laboratories available.

The AI projects were showing great promise. As Chuck and Matthew worked on the AI projects, Chuck converted old programs of his into sellable apps. Soon, the apps were making money. The business was beginning to take shape, to become its own living thing.

Chuck shut the PI office but did not officially go out of business. He kept his license current.

Sarah continued teaching; she had no plan to quit.

ooOoo

Chuck moved in with Sarah a couple of weeks after the engagement. The Crown Vic died in the parking lot there after the last trip with Chuck's things. It would not start again. Nine lives used up. Chuck had to have it towed and put to rest. Morgan, who stopped by to help Chuck move in, watched sadly as the Vic was towed away.

"Like Chesko, she gave up the ghost, as they say."

Chuck gave Morgan a look. "Did we ever figure out who says that?"

Shrugging, Morgan quipped, "I guess we do."

ooOoo

Chesko had been reanimated in the meantime. The US government has supplied the funds, although not six million dollars. Still, even the more modest amount allowed for a resurrected Chesko of renewed vitality and brighter colors. His sound system was also better. Chuck found him almost infinitely more frightening, and unless Sarah was with him, he never approached Hole 18.

Chuck never did go to visit Jill. He and Sarah sent her a nice Get Well card. She was out of the hospital and in rehab. So far, nothing from FARMA had blown back on her, but the investigation of the company was on-going.

The company itself was faltering. Although the full story about Foxworth was suppressed, share-holders grew antsy about the charges the company faced and its shaky leadership. Stocks were falling. Other pharmaceutical companies were poised to take FARMA apart and consume its pieces. Sadly, that would mean that the death of one FARMA would likely create two or more in its place, a perverse, monetized fissioning that seemed inevitable: dollars feeding on dollars.

ooOoo

Chuck and Sarah met with Matthew and Ginny in early May for a weekend in the Rockies. Although Ginny was still keeping the location of their permanent home a secret, the family looked well. Ginny was much larger and more clumsy, and annoyed with her size and her growing dependence on her husband. Sasha seemed even happier, better adjusted.

"How has she been?" Sarah asked Ginny as Sasha ran off to play in the pine needles beneath a tree. They were out taking a walk together. Chuck and Matthew were playing _Nancy Drew: The Final Scene_ back at the cabin - trash-talking to each other.

Ginny's face showed relief. "Much better. She hated leaving your class and leaving Mr. Chuck, but she's adjusted well to the new place. The main thing is that I am relaxing, no longer in constant spy mode. I realize I kept her keyed up, tense, because I kept us living like a fortress family. I brought the spy world home and it gnawed at her…" Ginny wiped sudden tears from her eyes.

"But, other than being annoyingly large and somewhat helpless, I am adjusting well too. It's been a detox of sorts. But I found a lawyer's office - they do _pro bono_ work, lots of it - and I volunteer. It gives me something to do, something to think about.

"When the baby arrives, and we get settled, I am going to open a self-defense studio for women. That's the plan, anyway. And Matthew is constantly working on the new projects for Chuck. He loves the idea of creating things that will help people immediately and directly. We have both had a bellyful of abstract 'greater good' shit."

"Graham used that phrase when he tried to recruit me," Sarah offered.

"Not surprised. It was his 'Open Sesame', his 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. He simply assumed that the greater good conformed to whatever he did, wanted to do."

Sarah nodded. That had been her impression too. That's how that talk almost always worked.

Sarah looked at Ginny. "Has Boosinger left you two alone? We've not heard from her, of her."

"Yes, she's been as good as her word. She's a weird choice for that job, a woman with a functioning conscience. I don't know how long it will last...at some point, her conscience will quit or she will. Langley is incompatible with moral imagination." Ginny stopped, rubbing her lower back and shaking off the topic.

"What about you two? I heard Chuck moved in."

"Yes, it's good. _Really good_. We just set a date. Middle of September. We're hoping you two can come."

Ginny pursed her lips. "We'll certainly try. Is it going to be a big affair?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, just us. A new dress and a new suit. Morgan will marry us. I know, long story...Just the folks who were at lunch at _Go Fork Yourself_ , plus Chuck's sister and her husband. My friend Jerri.

"And...maybe...my dad. He said he would come. I want him to meet Chuck. But it makes him a little nervous that Chuck used to be a PI and a lot nervous that one of Chuck's closest friends is a police captain. Dad's had a...colorful past."

Ginny nodded. "Is that part of the old story about the knives?"

"Yes."

"Hey, when I start my studio, how about coming for a visit sometime and teaching a guest course on knives? I'd like a chance to learn from you myself."

"You'd have to tell me where you live."

Ginny scanned the woods around them in comic exaggeration and then gave Sarah a secretive look, as if spy to spy. "All in good time, Agent Walker, all in good time," she said in a stagey Russian accent. When Sarah laughed, Ginny seemed both pleased and surprised.

* * *

Early Fall

* * *

Matthew and Ginny did make it to the wedding. Sasha too.

Ginny was huge and Matthew was overprotective, but they were there, and happy for their friends. Jack Burton made the wedding, although he spent most of the reception trying to avoid Casey, who, Jack complained, had the cop-est cop face Jack had ever seen. Still, Jack liked Chuck and was genuinely happy that his daughter was so happy.

Indeed, everyone was overjoyed about the wedding - everyone but Sarah's students, who were not happy about having to transition from Miss _Walker_ to Mrs. _Bartowski_. Her new name proved to be quite a mouthful for her kindergarten students. But they eventually adjusted.

ooOoo

Sarah got pregnant later that Fall.

It was hard to know who was most excited - if it was Chuck or Sarah...or Ellie.

The business was prospering. New AI devices were now being designed, initial programming was almost complete. Excitement surrounded Chuck and Sarah, each expectant in his or her way.

The baby was born a few days before the new AI software was to be presented at a news conference.

A little boy.

 _Philip_.

Chuck had lobbied for _Sherlock_ , and then for _Humphrey_ , but Sarah's good sense carried the day.

Chuck walked beside Sarah's wheelchair since the hospital, as a final act of due diligence, insisted that Sarah be wheelchaired to the car by a nurse. Chuck had purchased an old Toyota Land Cruiser, a tank on wheels, to chauffeur and protect his wife and child.

Casey hated that the car was not American-made, but he tolerated Chuck's choice. Casey had lobbied hard for a red Oldsmobile Delta 88 but Chuck's good sense carried the day.

Chuck took little Philip and put him in his car seat. The one they bought for Sasha was too big for Philip, but it was in a closet at the apartment, ready to take over when Philip got older.

After securing the baby, Chuck helped Sarah up into the Land Cruiser. She got in the seat, and Chuck closed the door.

ooOoo

As Chuck went around the front of the car and took his place in the driver's seat, Sarah rotated in hers, seatbelt on, to face Chuck, not the dashboard. In that position, she could see and touch the two most important things in her world, her husband and her son.

She leaned her head to the side, against the headrest, and gazed lovingly, first at her Chuck, then at Philip. She was empty, spent, sore from labor - but she was full of her husband and of her son. Chuck started the Cruiser and pulled away from the curb.

"Ellie and Devon are at our place, waiting to welcome us home. Ellie's promised to keep it low-key." Chuck and Sarah both laughed, knowing that expecting Ellie to be low-key at such a time was tilting at windmills.

"Thanks for reminding me, Chuck. I got a call from Ginny just before you got here. We talked about deliveries."

Chuck looked at Sarah a little nervously. "Um...not so sorry I missed that conversation. Witnessing the event was...enough... _wonderful_...but enough."

Sarah reached out to rub Chuck's arm. "It's okay, sweetie, you aren't the first man almost to pass out in the delivery room."

"No, but you were the one in pain, the one doing the...labor. I'm mortified."

Sarah looked back at Philip, sleeping in the car seat. "Don't be. I know you were suffering for me. I know you would have rather it have been you than me. You're sweet."

"Well, thanks, but I was once a working detective. I once fought rogue spies and evil policemen and quasi-zombies. You'd think…"

"You'd think you have a big, empathic heart, most especially for me. I love you for it, Chuck. I love you."

They drove on in warm silence. After a few minutes, Sarah gave Chuck a look. He caught it. "What?"

"Even fat and ugly and tired, even after giving birth, are you still jealous of me, Chuck. A smidgen, a skoosh…"

"A mite?" Chuck finished the list. "Absolutely, and you are not fat, ugly and tired. You are wholly beautiful. You are a woman, _the woman_ , Sarah Bartowski, the most amazing woman I know, and I know Ellie Woodcombe and Ginny Wilmore, so _the bar is way, way high_. But no one else is close, Sarah. No one, as much as I love Ellie, as fond as I am of Ginny."

Sarah's eyes got wet and she blinked. "Thank you, Chuck," she said quietly.

"For what, Sarah?"

"For everything."

* * *

 **The End**

* * *

 **A/N2** That's all, folks. If you aren't reading MisEd, goodbye! And thanks!

Again: Parting thoughts?

(New MisEd likely on Monday or Tuesday. It will now be my sole focus.)

Zettel


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